Ariz. may face new schools lawsuit

Case centers on nearly a decade of funding cuts

Less than a year after voters passed Proposition 123 to resolve a $1.6 billion lawsuit over school funding, a new, even larger education lawsuit looms — and almost nobody is talking about it.

While the first lawsuit focused on underfunding per-student payments to schools for operational costs such as teacher salaries, this latest dispute centers on nearly a decade of cuts to capital funding for textbooks, technology, buses and building maintenance. Attorneys have warned of a lawsuit for years.

Now, they say they could file one within the next month.

Gov. Doug Ducey in his budget proposal in-

cluded an additional $15 million to the School Facilities Board for building maintenance, but he continued hundreds of millions of dollars in annual cuts directly to schools for other school maintenance and soft capital.

Since 2009, ongoing cuts in this area have topped $2 billion.

A lone legislative effort to boost funding has received a cursory hearing but no public vote, and will not advance. It’s unclear whether the Legislature’s budget, which is still being crafted, will offer a solution that could stop the pending lawsuit.

One solution, another problem

Ducey took office in 2015 with the years-long education-operations-funding lawsuit hanging over his head. District and charter schools alleged Arizona shorted the public-school system during the Great Recession by not fully covering inflation costs required under the voter-approved Proposition 301.

An Arizona judge had ordered the state to pay $1.6 billion over five years, and was considering schools’ request for an additional $1.3 billion to cover retroactive inflation costs.

Ducey proposed Prop. 123 as a settlement agreement. The voter-approved plan adds $3.5 billion to public district and charter K-12 funding over the next 10 years, mainly by drawing a higher percentage annually from the Arizona land trust fund.

Free of that legal obligation, Ducey promised to move forward with a new plan to improve education in Arizona.

In his January State of the State address, he laid the groundwork for what he called the “road map” to Arizona’s education future. The end goal, Ducey and his staff say, is to close the state’s student-achievement gap, which has left poor and minority students struggling to succeed.

Ducey’s proposals include a 0.4 percent raise for teachers over each of the next five years, $1,000 signing bonuses for teachers willing to work in low-income schools, $10 million for full-day kindergarten programs at low-income schools and an additional $38 million for schools that excel. Altogether, Ducey is proposing an additional $96.6 million for schools.

But before he progresses down that road, Ducey may find himself again forced to govern by lawsuit and in a position where courts order the state to spend money it doesn’t have on hand. He’s refused to discuss raising taxes for education, including bipartisan proposals to ask voters to expand the sales tax.