So far, so good
State’s school districts faring better than most

Students make their way down the halls of Miyamura High School on Tuesday afternoon. While budget shortfalls means that the school will have less money to work with, money from the recent economic stimulus package will make the difference. — © 2009 Gallup Independent / Brian Leddy

Copyright © 2009
Gallup Independent
By Bill Donovan
Staff writer

GALLUP — Ray Arsenault is happy to be head of a school district in New Mexico.

In some states, including Arizona, school districts are looking at severe cutbacks in school funding and the layoff of some teachers. Flagstaff, because of a policy of last hired, first laid off, was forced to lay off a teacher who had won Teacher of the Year honors the year before.

So, keeping all of this in mind, Arsenault says the finances for the Gallup-McKinley County District are looking rather rosy.

Of course, teachers and staff won’t be getting salary increases in the next school year because of the economic downturn, but no one is facing the possibility of being laid off.

Even the state’s decision to cut funding to the school districts by $10 a student per day — something that would reduce the school district’s funding by about $5 million next year — is really not that bad because the district is scheduled to receive about the same amount from the federal stimulus package to help pay for any shortfalls.

‘In other words, it’s going to be a wash,” Arsenault said.

In fact, the county public school district will be seeing as much as $20 million — the exact amount is still up in the air — over the next two years from the stimulus package which will help certain programs, since much of this money is restricted for use in specific programs.

And New Mexico school district superintendents have been looking at other ways to get more funds.

During the previous session of the Legislature, state Sen. George Muñoz, D-McKinley County, said several resolutions were introduced that would have increased taxes with most of these extra funds going to fund school districts and education programs.

But Muñoz said that because of the times, legislators were afraid to raise taxes.

Arsenault and other school superintendents had been hoping that the state would have approved an increase in state gross receipts taxes which would have provided the district with an extra $21 million a year for educational programs.

With that idea now just a dream, Arsenault and other superintendents are looking at filing a lawsuit against the state for violation of the state constitution’s equity clause which requires the state to provide 50 percent of the budget to education programs.

“We are being funded at 15 percent under that,” he said. A victory in that lawsuit would provide the district an extra $21 million a year.

Other states have filed similar lawsuits and been successful, he said, adding that Minnesota, where he spent much of his early teaching career, did that in 1986 and won.

Arsenault has been a big supporter of the idea and was given the honor of giving the kickoff talk about the proposal at the recent meeting of the Coalition of School Administrators.

For years, the district looked at that impact aid lawsuit as a way to increase district funding but after several years of going through the court system, the U.S. Supreme Court, by a one-vote majority, shut the door on that idea.

Since then, however, the district has been thinking of reviving the issue and getting Congress to step in and pass legislation that would force the state to turn over more impact aid funds its receives to the district.

But by doing this, Arsenault said, it would mean that the money would be taken from other school district budgets and he didn’t want to get some school superintendents mad at the Gallup District, so this idea has been put on the back burner.

Muñoz said that school districts in the state would probably be all right for the next two years because of the stimulus money. But after that, if the economy does not improve, the situation may change, he said.