By Steve Brawner, © 2019 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

Arkansas will spend $2.25 billion in general revenue dollars to educate its 500,000 public school students this year, and all of that money and all of those students could be affected by a $659,580 contract approved by the House and Senate Education Committees.

(Editor’s Note: The Arkansas Legislative Council later did not grant approval of the contract. It is unclear what will happen next.)

As reported by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, the legislators voted to pay that amount to a consultant, Denver-based Augenblick, Palaich and Associates, to conduct an educational adequacy study. The contract still must be approved by the Arkansas Legislative Council, a big committee of legislators that meets between legislative sessions. If it gives the OK – which is not certain – then the consultants will dive deeply into Arkansas’ school funding matrix.

This will be the first school adequacy study since those produced by another consultant, Picus Oden & Associates, in 2003 and 2006 helped create the funding matrix.

Those studies were conducted in response to the Lake View School District court case where the state Supreme Court ruled the Arkansas Constitution makes the state responsible for providing all students an “adequate” and “equitable” education. The Constitution actually says “general, suitable and efficient,” but close enough, I guess.

The Lake View court case, and the actions taken in response including the Picus Oden adequacy studies, have provided a policymaking framework that has transcended left-right, Republican-Democrat politics ever since.

Lawmakers argue about a lot of things, but they haven’t argued much about school funding. K-12 education comprises $2.25 billion of this year’s $5.75 billion state general revenue budget – about 40%. Republicans and Democrats agree we don’t want another court case controlling that money, so the consensus solution has been to keep spending what we’re spending plus always a little more for inflation’s sake. Every two years, the House and Senate Education Committees produce an adequacy report that largely keeps the school funding matrix intact with a small increase. The full Legislature then approves spending about that amount with little debate. It’s kept the state out of court so far.

But the 2006 educational adequacy report is becoming a little dated. The world has changed since then, and even if it hadn’t, there are some parts of the school funding matrix that obviously should be tweaked. One example is that school transportation is based on a district’s number of students, not miles driven. That’s obviously not fair to those far-flung districts whose buses travel thousands of miles daily.

Some legislators this year have said it’s time for a new adequacy study, but there’s been disagreement about who to hire or whether to hire anyone at all. Some fear conducting a new adequacy study could make the state vulnerable in another lawsuit. It’s not hard to imagine a plaintiff’s attorney asking a state official on the witness stand, “Your OWN STUDY said you should spend X on schools, and instead you only spent Y. Meanwhile, Arkansas ranks near the bottom in school achievement. Is that adequate?” And of course, a consultant is not going to accept $659,580 and then say you’re doing fine. That kind of paycheck must be justified.

In the end, the reasons for conducting another adequacy study outweighed the reasons against it. The House and Senate Education Committees failed by one vote to hire Augenblick, Palaich and Associates a month ago when a couple of possibly supportive senators were absent. It looked like the idea was dead, but on Monday all senators were present. It wasn’t part of the agenda, but Sen. Joyce Elliott, D-Little Rock, moved to have last month’s vote expunged, and then lawmakers voted to hire the consultant.

Regardless of what happens with this study, eventually there will be another lawsuit. Public schools are too important, and there’s too much money at stake (and available in attorney contingency fees). Eventually, the courts will again decide if the state is following its constitutional mandate, which is a reminder that we really should be careful what we put in a Constitution.

There’s one last piece of important information: There are no justices left on the Arkansas Supreme Court who ruled in the Lake View case.

That means we have no idea how some future court will rule regarding whether or not Arkansas is funding its schools adequately and equitably, or at least suitably.