LITTLE ROCK — The state needs to spend an additional $56.6 million to $78.4 million on public education just to keep up with the rate of inflation and provide an adequate education, lawmakers decided Monday.
After a months-long “adequacy study” of the Arkansas education system that looked at transportation, technology, utilities, teachers’ salaries and other expenses to determine what per pupil amount is sufficient, the House and Senate Education Committees voted Monday to recommend a spending increase of between 1.8 percent to 2.5 percent to keep up with the estimated rate of inflation.
The committees also voted Monday to accept the adequacy study, which they must do by Nov. 1 under Arkansas law.
The recommendation and study will be considered by legislators and the governor as they create the budget for fiscal 2014 and 2015.
A 2002 state Supreme Court ruling requires Arkansas to appropriate sufficient money for schools to provide every student the opportunity for an equitable and adequate education.
The study is conducted every two years and must be based on student needs, not how much money the state has. In the 2012-13 school year, districts receive $6,267 per student.
Districts receive funding two different ways: a base line amount multiplied by the number of students in the district, and special funds based on the number of students learning to speak English, those with behavioral or social concerns and those living in poverty. There is also special funding for professional development.
The base line amount can be spent however districts see fit. The special funds can be spent only on the group of students for whom they are specified.
The range is based on estimates from Moody’s Analytics and IHS Global Insight, Bureau of Legislative Research Assistant Director Richard Wilson said.
The range recommended by lawmakers Monday would apply to both funding pools, although legislators included a provision that they may revisit the special funds, known as categorical funding, at a later time.
Senate Education Committee Chairman Sen. Jimmy Jeffress, D-Crossett, said that would likely take place at the committee’s Dec. 10 meeting.
He stressed that there is no guarantee the amount will change.
“I think there is some thought there that that money might better be spent somewhere else,” Jeffress said.
Gov. Mike Beebe expected the committee to recommend a range, spokesman Matt DeCample said.
“We figured that the center of that would be somewhere near 2 percent and that’s what we’ve seen,” DeCample said. “Of course we take the committee’s recommendations very seriously in our considerations and we’ll see where it ends up next month when our budget comes out.”
The state has increased funding by 2 percent per year for the past four years, Wilson said. The fiscal 2009 increase was 1.22 percent.
The average increase provided by the committee over the past five years was 1.84 percent. The actual average rate of inflation in the state over those five years was 1.76 percent.
Raising the amount spent by the estimated rate of inflation is sufficient “unless the court says it’s not, which I don’t think they’ve made any rumblings about to this point,” DeCample said. “So we don’t have any reason to question it if they don’t.”
Rep. Debra Hobbs, R-Rogers, questioned why lawmakers and Bureau staff perform the study if they just increase the funding amount to meet the estimated rate of inflation.
“It sounds like your recommendation is based solely on the inflationary index. We’re not taking anything else into account, correct?” she asked.
“Correct,” Jeffress said.
Raising funds doesn’t equate to providing an adequate education, Hobbs said.
“If we’re going to just use the inflationary index, why did we spend hours and hours in adequacy committee considering these other factors and then when we get ready we seem to ignore that?” she said.
Jeffress told reporters after the meeting that the Legislature last modified the base line funding formula in 2008 and is trying to maintain what it considers to be inadequate.
“The same items are necessary to be adequate, so unless you add new items to it, unless you decide to change and raise the amount you’re going to give teachers ... then you’re going to end up having the same amount just adjusted for inflation,” he said.
For years lawmakers have discussed changing how much districts receive for transportation - basing it on how many miles buses drive or how many students ride the bus instead of providing the same amount for every child - but there hasn’t been enough support to make the change.
In a presentation that was part of the adequacy study earlier this year, Wilson said the amount districts spend to transport children to and from school varies widely.
Some districts spend as little as $178 per child, others nearly $1,000, he said.
Under the current funding method, two-thirds of the state’s 239 districts receive less for transportation than their actual costs. The other third receives more than they need, Wilson said.
Jeffress said after the meeting that the committee will need to address some sections of the funding formula, such as transportation, but said this was not the year to address those issues.
“Knowing the nature of things going on right now, what with politics and the election and everything, if you start trying to jumble everything up, reapportion all the money out, even though it’s the same amount of money, you’re just going to get into a big fight, a big tussle, and we didn’t have the stomach for it this year,” Jeffress said.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 10/16/2012