It's dense, it's dull and it's complicated and, at first glance, last week's actions by a legislative panel made things even more complex, if that's possible.
“When this bill gets done and drafted, it's going to change the budget authority levels of every school in the state,” said state Sen. Don Ryan, D-Great Falls and a member of the Quality Schools Interim Committee. “We'll see changes in taxes all across the state.”
Whether it can be sold politically and passed into law in the next six weeks is another question, which we'll get to in a moment. That's how long we have until a special session of the Legislature may be convened to deal with the issue.
But there is some method to the madness of this 11-member panel, which last week told legislative staff to start drawing up the bill to overhaul public school funding in Montana.
The overhaul is in response to Montana Supreme Court and state District Court decisions last year that said state funding of schools is inadequate, and does not fulfill the state's obligation of providing a “quality education” to all Montana children.
The courts said not only is state money not enough, but also that the Legislature hasn't based state funding on what will deliver this quality education.
The new funding formula outlined last week by the Quality Schools Interim Committee attacks these failings by creating a new “quality base” budget for all districts.
This base, or “Q line,” as some are calling it, is a minimum budget that all school districts must meet to provide a quality education.
Yet there are two critical elements to the equation we don't yet know: How much is the minimum budget for each school district, and how much of that minimum will be covered by the state?
Staffers for the Legislature and governor's budget office already are crunching numbers to create a spreadsheet showing the “Q line” for each district. Those numbers will be made public early this week.
The Q line is derived by adding up the cost of nine financial/educational “components” approved by the committee. Each component is part of a basic quality education, such as classroom expenses (teacher salaries, for example), building maintenance, transportation and Indian cultural education.
Staffers are using a huge bank of data, including current spending, to calculate the district-by-district Q line for the 2006-07 school year.
Some districts - most likely smaller districts - may be shocked to see their Q line being much higher than their current budget.
The state will cover part of those Q-line costs, and local property taxes will pay for the rest. The question is, how much will the state pay?
“We'll see what that Q line is in all those different districts, and the (property tax) increase that would be required to be levied in that district,” Ryan said. “Then we'll look at that and say, ‘How do we do that? Can we afford that? Is that too much?' ”
At this point, the politics start kicking in.
The Legislature, along with Gov. Brian Schweitzer, would have to decide what percentage of the Q line will be funded by the state.
Ryan said he's thinking state funding for schools should increase by $50 million to
$60 million next year, to avoid forcing districts to increase local taxes.
Rep. Monica Lindeen, D-Huntley and chairwoman of the Quality Schools Interim Committee, said the state must pay its “fair share,” but that she's not ready to say what that amount will be.
The main reason for the lawsuit leading to this whole scenario is the steady fall of the state's share of public school funding.
The Schweitzer administration won't say publicly how much money it believes the state must spend. It has hinted that any increase may be minimal.
Of course, politics also will determine whether this whole scheme even gets off the ground in the coming weeks.
The Quality Schools Interim Committee will meet in Helena again Nov. 18, when it will see the draft bill to enact the new formula and its Q line.
Committee members are expected to broach the thorny topic of money and decide on possible changes to the bill. They may meet again to hammer out a final version that will be offered up to a special session of the Legislature, most likely the week of Dec. 12.
Somewhere between now and then, school officials, teachers, citizens and lawmakers will eyeball the proposals, try to figure out how it works and affects them, and decide if it's anything they want to support.
Some Republican legislative leaders and education officials have expressed strong doubts, saying it's just too much to swallow in a mere five weeks, and then get it through a special session.
Eric Feaver, president of MEA-MFT, the union representing public school teachers, said he suspects there won't be enough support among lawmakers to adopt a complete funding overhaul.
Instead, lawmakers may seize on less complicated, shorter-term solutions to funnel more state money to schools next year, he said.
“There still needs to be a special session,” he said. “But you can't just expect it's going to happen the way you want to. There will be other bills prepared.”
Lindeen, however, is among those who think the overhaul can work.
“If there's a willingness for all parties to come together and find some common ground, we can do it,” she said last week. “If we truly want to do what's right for our education system and our kids in this state, we'll put aside our own personal opinions and come together.”
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