Four Senators (Saslaw, Houck, Colgan and Wampler) and four Delegates (Cox, Hamilton, Hogan and Joannou) are conferring for the purpose of developing the public education budget for the second year of this biennium.
Going into this session, education advocates perceived there to be two battles - minimizing the cuts and keeping the cuts from being permanent.
The American Reinvestment and Recovery Act has gone a long way to minimize the cuts. Thanks to ARRA funds, the policy driven cuts of the Governor’s introduced amendments have been reduced from $375 million down to $17.5 million.
What remains as the most significant issue to be decided by the eight conferees is, will the cuts be permanent? The cuts will be permanent if the Governor’s proposed language regarding the support staff ratio remains in the budget. Budget language is a driver in determining the level of funding required by the technical rebenchmarking, the biennial reassessment of the cost of determining “the cost of maintaining an educational program meeting the prescribed standards of quality …” (Article VIII, Section 2). The bottom line is that including the Governor’s language will reduce the cost by $400 million a year.
The House, despite public pronouncements protesting permanent cuts, includes the language. The Senate makes the cuts temporary. This is the most important decision these eight conferees will make regarding public education.
The harshest contrast in the two positions is this:
House Position: We are not going to have enough money for the rebenchmarking for the next budget, so we have to take actions to reduce the cost.
Senate Position: We should refrain from abandoning the rebenchmarking process and use the standard methodology to determine the cost of rebenchmarking. If we don’t have enough money to fund education we should confront the issue by either lowering the state level of support or raising sufficient revenue.
As you judge the two positions, consider the Constitutional provisions relating to the SOQ.
Constitution of Virginia, Article VIII, Section 2. Standards of quality; State and local support of public schools.
Standards of quality for the several school divisions shall be determined and prescribed from time to time by the Board of Education, subject to revision only by the General Assembly.
The General Assembly shall determine the manner in which funds are to be provided for the cost of maintaining an educational program meeting the prescribed standards of quality, and shall provide for the apportionment of the cost of such program between the Commonwealth and the local units of government comprising such school divisions. Each unit of local government shall provide its portion of such cost by local taxes or from other available funds.
Are we seeing the role of the Board of Education to determine and prescribe the SOQ, encroached upon by a Governor and a General Assembly who lack Constitutional authority in this regard?
When the Commonwealth was last taken to court regarding the Standards of Quality, in April of 1994, the case, Reid Scott v. Commonwealth, was based on the financial disparity between divisions and the Commonwealth prevailed when Justice Roscoe B. Stephenson opined, “While the elimination of substantial disparity between school divisions may be a worthy goal, it simply is not required by the Constitution.”
The next case may question the Constitutional authority of the Legislature and the Governor to determine and prescribe the SOQ.
The answer to the question of whether the cuts in the current budget are temporary or permanent could decide the likelihood of such a case.
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