Schools Sue Over Funding Formula

March 1, 2010

ANDERSON­ — A lawsuit filed by growing school systems that claims Indiana’s school-funding formula treats them unfairly is being criticized by leading officials in both political parties.

 
Democratic Attorney General Greg Zoeller bordered on exasperated while discussing a Hamilton County suit in which three school districts — Hamilton Southeastern, Franklin Township in Marion County and Middlebury in Elkhart County — sued the state over how it funds local school districts.

“All schools are struggling, suing the state with state money,” Zoeller paused, “I think it’s the role of the attorney general to point out that ’s not good policy.”

Likewise, State Sen. Luke Kenley, R-Noblesville, who heads the budget-writing Appropriations Committee, said, “I think the legislature is the right place to make these decisions, not the courts.”

But Hamilton Southeastern Community Schools Superintendent Brian Smith said the Fishers-based district — the fastest-growing in the state — can’t afford not to challenge the funding formula in court, because repeated efforts to change it in the General Assembly have failed.

“The state Constitution is being violated and (Zoeller’s) office is supposed to uphold the state Constitution,” Smith said. He said the Constitution requires a uniform education system “and the funding formula does not provide for a uniform system of distribution of funding.”

“We have schools getting (state support of) $13,239 per student, and a school system like ours is getting $4,800 per student. … The formula in the last eight years has focused on penalizing growing schools with high performance,” Smith said.

According to a news release from Hamilton Southeastern, the three systems bringing the suit each are projected to be in the lowest 10 percent of Indiana school districts in per-student funding next year.

Taxpayers, Zoeller said, will be on the hook for the costs born by his office to defend the suit as well as paying the legal bills for the school districts and the court’s costs.

“We could be at this another three years,” Zoeller said, though he said he will ask the court to dismiss the suit. He said the Indiana Supreme Court has ruled that school funding is an issue for the Legislature and not the courts.

Anderson Community Schools Business Manager Kevin Brown said the suit, if successful, “would further damage out fiscal situation.” ACS, according to the latest asse ssment from Superintendent Felix Chow, still must cut $6 million beyond a consolidation at the end of the school year designed to cut $5 million from the budget.

Brown said he understands the aim of schools who are suing to try to equalize per-student funding, but that they could stand to lose more than they gain.

“Based on what I have read, they fail to take into consideration that it’s costlier to provide education in an urban situation than a rural situation,” Brown said, noting urban schools tend to have more lower-income and special-needs students. “In order to serve those populations, it’s a more expensive proposition.”

The school funding rules “take some of those factors into consideration, not fully, but in some measure they do,” Brown said. “As this (suit) works through the system, these realities will be pointed out.”

Kenley agreed, and said the schools bringing the suit are taking a big risk. “A very legitimate argument can be made that they are being treated fairly,” he said, while opening an avenue for less-affluent districts to seek redress on what they consider shortcomings in the formula.

“I think Mr. Smith would concede that children who come from a disadvantaged demographic background … are probably going to require more money. That’s kind of the premise of the formula.”

 
Kenley said “The biggest problem we have is we don’t have enough money to make everybody happy.”

Smith said he understands elements of the formula, and that he didn’t know how he would rewrite the state funding formula if he had the opportunity. But he said lawmakers continue to ignore requests to amend the formula so that it rewards school districts that have high benchmarks for student achievement.

“I think that’s wrong,” Smith said.</p&g t;

“This is not a race-based issue and it’s not an income-based issue,” he said. “It all goes back to the state Constitution that says the state shall provide a uniform system of schools.”

When asked last week if there were any legal restrictions on the use of state dollars by an entity of the state to sue the state, Zoeller took a long, deep breath, then said, “Not yet.”