AZ School Finance: Can it be reformed?

 

 

ABEC Greetings! 

 

In June, 2007 the ABEC Board of Directors gave direction to initiate an ambitious project on school finance. The charge included examining public policy that governs school finance of Arizona's K-12 public school system, including maintenance and operations, capital, and school construction; by

• establishing guiding principles;

• reviewing current spending practices to understand what and why those practices exist;

• understanding current sources of revenue; and

• reviewing alignment with pre-K and postsecondary funding,

In order to promote not only fiscal accountability but also an equitable and adequate funding model for the State of Arizona.

 

This project is not without risks of failure. Some say previous efforts failed for a variety of reasons including: 

• The reformers are not clear or unified on the goal they seek.  What is the purpose for the reform?  To save money?  Improve efficiencies?  Increase test scores? 

• School finance has always been handled from the perspective of winners versus losers; an inability to compromise and find a middle ground led to solutions that lost sufficient votes to doom the effort.

• Efforts have either been too narrow (e.g., excess utilities, desegregation) or too broad (ACE initiative) and didn't contemplate a phased-approach to minimize disruption and uncertainty.

• The Legislature is very unlikely to pursue options that would lead to increases in residential property taxes, and the ability of business personal property tax payers to shoulder additional tax burden is limited.

• While Districts have generally supported school finance reform that would increase state support, they have strongly opposed restrictions on their ability to raise local funds (i.e. for construction, bonding, overrides)

• The issues of school finance have been too complex to handle as most other bills are handled, and the attention span at the legislature for difficult, long range work is extremely limited.

• Other issues, like school choice, Title 15 reform, have a tendency to get inserted into the debates, causing major arguments.

What do YOU think? Is such a project likely to find success or is it just too difficult to handle?

 

 

About the author...

Susan Carlson is the executive director of the Arizona Business & Education Coalition (ABEC), a 501(c)3 organization providing a balanced forum for business and education leaders to collaborate and improve K-12 education policy, with linkages to pre-kindergarten and postsecondary education. Guiding principles include: increasing public awareness about the relationship between Arizona’s future workforce and the quality of the K-12 system; actively and effectively influencing education policy; and sharing responsibility for the growth of student achievement in Arizona. For more information, visit www.azbec.org.