Arizona's
public schools are due an additional $317 million in funding for the
coming budget year, a court ruled Friday, a decision that could cost the
state an extra $1.6 billion over the next five years.
But the
court left undecided Friday the fate of $1.3 billion in back payments
that schools argue they're due for unpaid costs related to inflation.
The ruling by Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Katherine Cooper
comes after the state Supreme Court last year ruled the Legislature
failed to honor the direction voters gave in 2000, when they approved a
ballot measure calling for annual inflation adjustments to the
school-funding formula.
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The
Legislature froze those adjustments for four years, during the
recession, and resumed them for the fiscal 2014 budget year. But
lawmakers did not retroactively adjust the base funding for inflation,
nor did they provide money to make up for what was lost during the
intervening four years.
Cooper, following the direction set by the
Supreme Court, ordered the state to adjust base funding for schools in
the coming fiscal year to $3,560 per student, a collective increase of
about $317 million.
That increase will boost overall school
spending by about $1.6 billion over the next five years but also could
strain a budget that lawmakers say can't withstand the increase. Budget
officials have already projected a possible shortfall in the budget year
that begins in July 2016.
Cooper said another hearing is needed
to determine how, or whether, to disburse $1.3 billion in back payments
to schools. Those dollars, missing for four years, would have paid for
teacher salaries and other classroom improvements.
"The court
must determine whether the facts support the disbursement of yesterday's
funds today," she wrote. The schools have argued they can put the money
to work on classroom equipment, such as computers and building
renovations; state officials argued they don't have the funds to cover
that cost.
Cooper rejected nearly all of the state's arguments,
including lawmakers' objection that only the Legislature can appropriate
money.
But Cooper said that issue was decided by the Supreme
Court: It held the Legislature violated the Voter Protection Act by not
following the will of the voters when they approved a ballot measure in
2000 increasing school funding.
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