This week at the Arizona Legislature: The history of a decades-old school funding lawsuit

Arizona Republican legislative leaders are asking a judge to delay or block an order that requires them to make changes to the way the state funds public schools. This is the latest move in a decades-old lawsuit dealing with school funding.

Howard Fischer of Capitol Media Services joined The Show to talk more.

Full conversation

MARK BRODIE: And Howie, we will get to the history of this case in just a moment, but first off, what exactly are the House speaker and Senate president asking for now?

HOWARD FISCHER: At the moment, they’re asking at the very least for a delay in Judge Fox’s order that says, you have until November to come up with a system to fix school funding.

They’re saying, A, it’s this, too quickly, and B, they'd really like the whole order overturned because they say it’s none of his darn business how the Legislature allocates funding, how the Legislature decides what schools need, and that they have to go ahead and say, look, the Legislature said this, it must be perfect.

Education

GOP lawmakers appeal ruling to provide more funding for Arizona public schools

Howard Fischer/Capitol Media Services

Republican legislative leaders are moving to block a court order requiring them to fix the system of funding public schools.

Now, as we all know, judges don’t like to be told they have no authority over issues, particularly this is constitutional.

MARK BRODIE: Right.

HOWARD FISCHER: And that gets to the whole issue behind the case, which is that Arizona’s constitution requires what they call a general and uniform school system. Now, that doesn’t mean every school has to have exactly the same equipment, exactly the same conditions, but that all schools should be safe, they shouldn’t have roofs that leak, they should have air conditioning or cooling that somewhat works so it’s not 92 degrees in the classroom while you’re trying to teach someone, and they should all have a certain equipment.

For example, you know, should they have computers? Should they have blackboards? Should they have desks? I mean, some of that may sound obvious. But lawmakers are saying, well, we’re doing the best we can and it’s none of the judge’s business to tell us how we should do it.

Now, remember, this case goes back to 2017, and we’ll talk about actually goes back into the 1980s.

MARK BRODIE: Yeah, so this case has been going on, as you reference, for decades now and I think we’d need an entire episode of The Show to go through all the twists and turns of it.

But can you sort of walk us through, sort of generally, how this case started and how it’s ended up where it is?

HOWARD FISCHER: This goes back at the very least to 1994, when the state Supreme Court in a case called Roosevelt v. Bishop said that requirement for general and uniform system requires the states to be the ones responsible for funding school construction, school repairs and school equipment.

Because prior to that, the understanding was every school district would be responsible for its own equipment, repairs, etc. Which led to a situation, for example, in Springerville where they have a power plant, you had a dome stadium. In Globe, the toilets didn’t work.

And the court said, no, that doesn’t work. Now what the justices did is they didn’t say, you will do X, they say, you have to come up with a system to properly fund education.

And the Legislature, after several fits and starts, finally came up with various programs, something called Students First, for example. They also came up with a School Facilities Board to say, OK, figure out what the needs are and we will make sure that every school has enough not just to do the immediate repairs, but to keep things in repair because it’s a lot cheaper to deal with a bad roof by patching it rather than having to replace it totally.

Everything considered went along fine for a while, but back in 2017, some of those same school districts came back to the courts and said, wait a second, the Legislature, when they were in financial difficulties, simply stopped funding school repairs, school replacement equipment. And we have to get back to where we are.

So it’s taken us literally in this case from 2017 until last August when the judge issued a 114-page opinion and said, here’s what’s wrong with the system, you know, you’ve got until November to fix it. Again, he’s not telling them how to fix it. He’s not saying you need to spend X number of dollars. He’s saying, you come up with a solution.

MARK BRODIE: Yeah, and one of the arguments that the legislative leaders are making, Howie, as you report, is that, you know, the state has a finite amount of money and if, you know, they have to spend more on education or school facilities, things like that, it means less money coming from somewhere else or they have to raise taxes, which of course the Republicans do not want to do.

So like, how how does this get resolved? I mean, the judge as you say is kind of loath to say, OK, you have to spend X amount on this, but can the judge say, you need to spend more, for example?

HOWARD FISCHER: I think the judge can say you need to spend whatever is necessary to ensure what the constitution requires. This is not a legislative issue because with, in fact, he pointed out the last time we went through this, it was, the Legislature came up with a school facilities board that came up with these standards that they’re not meeting.

Now can the judge order them to raise taxes? No. But what the, the ultimate power the judge has, and then we can kind of parse this down, is if the system is unconstitutional, he can say, you can order the treasurer not to fund it, which basically would close down every school throughout the state because there’d be no state aid at all. That’s the power he has.

Now, as the issue of we don’t have enough money, I mean, as you say, we could spend the hour talking about this because, you know, we cut state income tax rates for individuals and corporations over the years, you know, the idea that it would produce more money. You’ve got related issues of how well do we fund schools as compared to other places.

So the judge said, not my problem. It is true, you have to figure out your priorities. Now, it’s also important to remember is that right now, as we’ve talked about every Monday morning for this past, since January, we have a budget crunch.

MARK BRODIE: Right.

HOWARD FISCHER: Now, there are many reasons for that, you know, in terms of recession, the judge is also saying, I’m not saying you have to fix it all at once, but you have to make some progress, you have to come up with a system to ensure a general and uniform system.

Now, if you have to take money away from something else, well, maybe that’s the case. If you have to decide that you need higher taxes, maybe that’s the case. But again, you cannot simply ignore the constitution because it’s, A, it's inconvenient, or B, we just don’t have the money to do so.

MARK BRODIE: Well, so Howie, given that, you know, budget talks are ongoing, there could be votes maybe this week or next week, is this part of the conversation among lawmakers and the governor?

HOWARD FISCHER: Well, not among the, the lawmakers. I mean, their attitude is well, we’ll just get a delay and we’ll kick the can down the road at the very least. I mean, there seems to be a belief among the Republicans that the judge exceeded his authority. And maybe he did. But again, given the precedent set by the Supreme Court back in 1994, I’m not sure that he did.

Now, maybe there’s some tiny things in there that are different from Roosevelt v. Bishop in terms of what he says are necessary, but I think the lawmakers just hoping to kick the can down the road.

Now, remember, this isn’t the only court order they’ve got. We’ve talked about the fact we’ve got a federal judge that has said she’s going to place the prison system into receivership because the fact that the healthcare being provided does not meet constitutional requirement. In that case, that’s federal Constitution.

There are obviously a lot of things going on. You know, can Arizona do it with the revenues that are coming in? Do we need a different revenue structure? You know, it’s nice that, you know, we’re in an election cycle and you’ve got people like Andy Biggs saying, well, we’ll just, you know, get rid of property taxes or sales taxes or something else, and somehow we’ll grow our way out of it.

And there is some reason to believe that you can incentivize people to move here, to bring their companies here, which bring jobs, which bring other forms of taxes. But in the meantime, you actually have to have a system that works. Now, how do you do that? That’s why you and I are talking on the radio, and we’re not the 90 people at the Capitol deciding this.

MARK BRODIE: Sure. That is Howie Fischer with Capitol Media Services. Howie, thanks as always.

HOWARD FISCHER: You’re welcome.

KJZZ's The Show transcripts are created on deadline. This text is edited for length and clarity, and may not be in its final form. The authoritative record of KJZZ's programming is the audio record.

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