Officials optimistic on ruling

By Bill Donovan
Staff Writer

GALLUP — Local county public school officials are saying that the U.S. Supreme Court may make a ruling on the impact aid issue by April.

"We believe it went well," said George Kozeliski, the impact aid attorney for the Gallup-McKinley County Public School District.

Kozeliski and top officials for the Gallup school district as well as the Zuni Public School District were in Washington, D.C. last week for oral arguments in the impact aid case that the two school districts filed against the state of New Mexico several years ago.

The two districts contend that the state is wrong in keeping the lion's share of the impact aid monies that Congress appropriates to the two school districts every year. For the county school district, winning the case would mean about $20 million extra a year in funding as well as the return of $200 million in past allocations that was kept by the state.

Ron Van Amberg, the attorney for the Zuni school district, presented the arguments for the local districts and from the questioning, Kozeliski said, he got the impression that at least two of the supreme court justices Anthony Scalia and Chief Justice John Roberts may be leaning to the district's side.

As far as the other seven justices, it was hard to tell, Kozeliski said.

County Superintendent Karen White said she "felt good about it," but she pointed out that she felt the same way after the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals hearing, and that ended up with an unfavorable decision.

"I think Ron did a good job," she said, adding that she discovered at the hearing that this wasn't a trial but a "discussion on points of law with the attorneys on both sides helping to clarify the questions."

Van Amberg did a good job, she said, in the rebuttal segment after attorneys for the state of New Mexico and the Solicitor General's office presented their side of the case. "I'm sure that George was passing his notes to help out," she said.

Kozeliski said he and Van Amberg spent most of the previous week preparing and on Tuesday, the day before the district's case was scheduled to be heard, he and Van Amberg went and watched a couple of oral arguments in other cases just to get a feeling on how the court operates.

The issue that was discussed at the oral hearings was whether the state of New Mexico, as state officials claim, had the right to change the funding formula that Congress set forth in allocating impact aid funds.

State attorneys said the state did because of vagueness in the law. All the state and the U.S. Secretary of Education were doing was "filling in the gaps."

Kozeliski said the school district's position was that Congress was not vague and that the state was mandated to follow its direction.

As for when a ruling will be issued, Kozeliski said that the longest the school districts will probably have to wait is May or June the end of this term but the court has been issuing most of its decisions in about three months.