Education Coalition Seeks 7 Percent Hike Increase Request For ‘96 Same As Batt Backed This Year
The revived and expanded coalition of state education interests is seeking a 7 percent increase in state aid to public schools for the 1996-1997 school year.
The proposal, to be formally submitted to the state Board of Education later this month, recognizes the fiscal conservatism of Republican Gov. Phil Batt by reflecting the same percentage increase he backed for the current school year.
After years of battling between the GOP legislative majority and former Democratic Gov. Cecil Andrus over the politically sensitive issue of school aid, Batt firmly resisted pressures to continue double-digit percentage increases last winter.
He proposed a 7 percent hike in state support and easily won legislative support for it.
The coalition, calling for more than twice that increase, was essentially ignored during last winter’s limited debate over state aid, its request appears to be an attempt to reassert its influence on legislative budget writing.
The coalition is calling for $710.5 million, which is $1.5 million below its ignored recommendation for the current year. It essentially maintains the programs already being financed by the state with a 2 percent boost in the teacher and staff salaries the state will underwrite.
The proposal does modify financing for two existing programs, cutting the school improvement budget by a quarter to $750,000 and increases spending for students with limited English proficiency from $1 million to $1.5 million. It also restores $750,000 for the teacher mentor program that was cut this year.
But while an apparent attempt to fit within Batt’s budgeting philosophy, the proposal fails to take into consideration the governor’s $13.3 million reduction in state aid imposed earlier this fall to deal with a slowing state economy that has left tax collections below original projections.
And it also contemplates that cash from the state endowment, which totals $33 million this year, will increase to $35.5 million in the 1996-1997 school year.
In addition to the cash from the state, the 112 school districts will also benefit from an estimated $189 million in local property taxes. Under Batt’s property tax-relief package approved last winter, the state will pick up over $47 million of that amount.
The coalition, formed under former state Schools Superintendent Jerry Evans, was all but disbanded early this year when Evans’ successor, Anne Fox, took a different view and distanced herself from the coalition’s state aid recommendation.
But Fox agreed to stay in the group as long as the membership was expanded beyond the traditional members of the Idaho Education Association, the School Boards Association, the School Administrators Association and the TA. It now includes the Idaho Migrant Council, a group called Idaho Rural Schools Association, the Hispanic Commission, the chairman of the House Education Committee, a businessman and several individual parents.