Senator: Increased school funding would mean cuts to other services
Smith testifies that state’s education spending is adequate
One of the state’s most powerful Democratic legislators told a judge Wednesday that if New Mexico put more money into its public education system, it would have to cut funding for other vital services.
“It’s going to have to come out of prisons, it’s going to have to come out of health care, out of human services, out of law enforcement, out of the environmental department. It’s gonna have to come out of the Department of Transportation,” state Sen. John Arthur Smith, D-Deming, said during testimony in a civil trial over a lawsuit alleging the state inadequately funds public schools.
A coalition of parents, students and school districts — including Santa Fe Public Schools — filed the suit in 2014, saying the state is shortchanging children who are most at risk of floundering in school or dropping out, including special-education students, those who are economically disadvantaged and English-language learners.
The group is asking state First Judicial
District Judge Sarah Singleton in Santa Fe to force the state to meet its requirement under the New Mexico Constitution to provide a “sufficient” public education for all students.
Smith, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, testified Wednesday for the state and the New Mexico Public Education Department, speaking mostly about the financial crisis New Mexico has faced, largely because of declining oil and gas revenues, and the limited amount of funding it is able to distribute for needed services.
In the past week, the state has called on witnesses to counter a claim by the coalition of parents and teachers that investing more money in public education will yield better results.
Witnesses for the state also have argued that New Mexico, which consistently ranks at or near the bottom among states in many national education reports, is doing everything it can to provide children with a quality education.
Some witnesses who have taken the stand for the plaintiffs have said the state has a source of additional funding for public schools — the $16 billion Land Grant Permanent Fund. The state trust land endowment, which draws revenue from land leases, drilling royalties and other land-use fees, already provides some funding for public education.
Smith, who has strongly opposed drawing any more money from the endowment, said such action would “diminish the reliability of that fund as a predictable source of revenue” for schools. “I’ve guarded that,” Smith said. There’s a growing trend across the nation to say, “We don’t have enough money” for public education, Smith said.
He also said he believes New Mexico is adequately funding public education.
His testimony contrasted with that of state Sen. Mimi Stewart D-Albuquerque, who took the stand for the plaintiffs in late June, saying New Mexico is “starving” its schools.
Public education funding accounts for about $2.7 billion of the state’s $6.2 billion budget this year, about 44 percent.
Under cross-examination by Gail Evans, an attorney with the New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty, which is representing the plaintiffs, Smith said the state could remove or reduce some corporate tax incentives and personal tax breaks to increase state revenues.
He has introduced legislation to do that, he said, but the measures have failed.
Still, Smith said, if similar measures became law and eventually brought in hundreds of millions of dollars more for the state, it’s unlikely the Legislature and governor would allocate more than 43 percent or 44 percent of those funds to schools.
As Smith rattled off the list of the agencies that would take a hit if the state invested more in education, he told Singleton the court system accounts for only about 3 percent of the state budget.
“Our contribution would be a pittance, then,” Singleton responded, in a moment of levity. “Look somewhere else.”
Singleton originally scheduled the case for nine weeks, but she and attorneys for both sides discussed the possibility of ending it a week early, perhaps as soon as Aug. 4. Witnesses for the defense, including at least one national expert who has argued that funneling more money into public education does not help improve student achievement, will continue to testify through next week.
Former Public Education Secretary Hanna Skandera, who recently stepped down, has been deposed to testify. Singleton said that may not be necessary, however, because the state called current Secretary Christopher Ruszowski to testify earlier this month.