Fox Seeks Additional Funds For Public Schools But Conservative Legislators Tell Her That She’s Just Wasting Her Time

State Schools Superintendent Anne Fox made good Monday on her pledge to press for more state aid to public schools than Republican Gov. Phil Batt is proposing.

But members of the conservative majority on the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee made it clear she is wasting her breath.

“As a conservative, I have a hard time justifying budget increases unless I see the need, and this year, I see the need,” Fox said as she urged legislative budget writers to consider nearly $19 million more than Batt has recommended in general tax aid for public schools.

She also sought legislators’ support for a half-cent increase in the 5-cent sales tax solely for repairing or replacing public school buildings.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Atwell Parry, R-Melba, pointed out that Batt’s hold-the-line state budget already allocates all but a few hundred thousand dollars of the $1.45 billion in general tax receipts expected. And some lawmakers believe that economic outlook is too optimistic.

Fox’s proposals would add $72 million to the financial load for the 1997-98 budget year which begins July 1.

“The only way we could do that is some sort of tax,” Parry said, “and I have to be honest - I don’t hear much talk about raising taxes this year.

“I appreciate what you’re saying,” he told Fox. “I just want to make sure hopes don’t get too high.”

Fox also spoke out strongly for giving schools the full $9 million that a special dime-a-pack cigarette tax is expected to raise next year. For the past two years, that money has been split with juvenile probation services to help the new Juvenile Corrections Department get going.

But that department has introduced legislation this year to make the split permanent.

“Essentially, it was raided,” Fox told lawmakers about the money. “We’re asking for the $9.3 million.”

Rep. Don Pischner, R-Coeur d’Alene, the only Panhandle lawmaker on the budget committee, said he generally is supportive of schools keeping the money.

A coalition of education interests, endorsed by the state Board of Education, has proposed increasing overall state aid to public schools by $34.4 million to nearly $724 million. Batt scaled that back to $705 million.

While Batt’s proposal would provide the cash necessary to meet mandatory financing requirements for schools, the difference is the amount left over for school districts to spend on discretionary items such as books and materials. Batt’s proposal would leave about $2,000 per classroom, while the coalition would push that amount to about $3,500.

“This is a very conservative budget,” Fox said. “It’s not pie in the sky.”

But the philosophical bent of her spending plan was not as important to most committee members as where the cash would come from to cover her proposal.

And Fox conceded she has no magic wand.

“You are the decision-makers,” she said. “All I can do is come to you with the needs and ask you to deal with them as best you can.”

She also said she will continue advocating the sales tax increase for school construction, although Batt and most lawmakers already have rejected it out of hand as they did a year ago.

And for school operations, she suggested lawmakers set aside for schools the first $19 million of any surplus that may materialize in June 1998.

That would do little for schools during the 1997-98 school year because they would not know if any additional cash would be available until after school is over in mid-1998. There would, however, be a boost for the 1998-99 school year if a surplus were to develop.

“We would be grateful whenever the money came,” Fox said, contending that the committee should remember that the share of the state budget going to schools has dropped from 52 percent to under 48 percent in a decade.

But that claim drew fire from Republican Sen. Evan Frasure of Pocatello, a strong supporter of more aid to higher education. Frasure demanded that Fox and other public school advocates recognize that two years ago, the state assumed responsibility for a quarter of the basic school operating property tax. That figure will reach $50 million in the new budget.

Using that as part of the calculation, he said, schools still are getting more than 50 percent of the state’s general tax budget.

“It clearly is going to education,” he said. “To say that the percentage is dropping is totally unfair.”

Marguerite McLaughlin of Orofino, the senior of only three Democrats on the 20-member committee, contended that the shift of some property taxes may bolster the state’s share of school support.

But she said it did absolutely nothing to put more money into classrooms, where it is needed most.

The exchange reflected the frustration lawmakers were warned of two years ago when they approved the tax shift.

Critics of the plan authored by Batt said it would not salve the anti-property-tax sentiment in the state.

Moreover, they said, it would eliminate cash the state could use to head off tight budgets such as the one legislators must write this winter.

, DataTimes