by Seth Blomeley
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Friday, December 1, 2006
The Arkansas Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that it will keep jurisdiction over the Lake View school-funding case, citing a failure of Attorney General Mike Beebe’s office to provide data to demonstrate that the state has improved its support of public schools.
“Indeed, counsel for state defendants has made no effort to inform this court in that regard,” the court said.
In the 5-2 decision, the court said it isn’t saying that the state’s efforts have failed. It emphasized that it needs more information before closing the 14-year-old case.
The dissenting justices said, as they have previously, that the court was overstepping its authority.
Beebe, elected governor on Nov. 7, said that if the court wanted more information, it should have asked.
The court reopened the case twice before. It took the rare step of opening the closed case in 2004 after inaction by the Legislature and Gov. Mike Huckabee, and in 2005 after public school funding was frozen.
A December 2005 ruling led to Thursday’s order. A year ago, the court set a deadline of today for the state to have an adequate education-funding system in place. The Legislature and Huckabee, in a special legislative session in April of this year, added $57 million for public schools for fiscal 2006 and $87 million for fiscal 2007.
On Nov. 17, four school districts led by the Rogers district asked the court to keep the case open past the deadline and reappoint special masters to evaluate whether what the state did meets the constitutional requirement of an adequate and equitable education system.
The Supreme Court on Thursday granted their motion.
“It is clear to this court that the onus was placed on the state defendants to cure the enumerated constitutional deficiencies,” the court said.
“It further appears that a special session of the General Assembly was held in 2006 where action was taken and that, in addition, certain reports have been prepared regarding ad- equacy and facilities funding. Yet, nothing has been provided to this court concerning the action taken or how that action addressed this court’s constitutional concerns.”
Beebe’s office has defended the state in the case. He called the ruling a disappointment and said he didn’t err by not making any filing.
“When it last ruled on this case ... the court neither ordered nor requested any further reports from the state,” Beebe said in a statement. “After the completion of April’s special legislative session, the court remained silent, expressing no concerns or dissatisfaction with the steps taken by the General Assembly. It is only after an 11th-hour filing by a handful of districts that the court has spoken. Without evidence in that filing of any failures in continued reform efforts by the state, the court has nonetheless decided to defy its own previous procedures and keep this case open.”
Beebe, a Democrat, takes the governor’s office Jan. 9 replacing Huckabee. The new attorney general will be state Rep. Dustin McDaniel, D-Jonesboro.
The court’s opinion Thursday was unsigned. Associate Justices Robert L. Brown, Tom Glaze, Betty Dickey and Donald Corbin, and Special Justice Carol Dalby joined in that order. Chief Justice Jim Hannah and Associate Justice Jim Gunter dissented.
“We wish to emphasize that this court is not prejudging whether constitutional compliance has occurred or not,” the court said. “We simply have not been provided with the necessary information to make an informed determination. We also emphasize that it is not this court’s intention to monitor the 2007 session of the General Assembly. Had this court been provided with information regarding compliance much earlier, we could have commenced our evaluation well before the 2007 session.”
The court named former Justices Bradley Jesson of Fort Smith and David Newbern of Little Rock as special masters to evaluate the state’s actions on public school matters. This is the third time the court has appointed Jesson and Newbern to that role.
The court gave the state 30 days to provide “all acts of the General Assembly, promulgated regulations, relevant reports, and any other information relating to constitutional compliance within thirty days of this opinion.”
It delayed the case deadline for 180 days, which the court said will be enough time for documents to be provided, the masters to evaluate the actions, and for the court to rule
That date also is after the likely completion of the next legislative session, which starts Jan. 8. Sessions last about three months.
The Rogers district’s attorney, David Matthews of Lowell, who is the lead lawyer for the districts, said the court’s ruling “makes sense” because it can’t be expected to rule if it doesn’t have evidence.
“If the state had filed a motion that said ‘We need a little more time to come into compliance’ nobody would have thought anything dramatic about that,” Matthews said.
He said he didn’t file a motion early because he expected the attorney general to have done so. But he didn’t fault Beebe for not doing that.
The court’s Dec. 15, 2005, opinion didn’t specifically say the attorney general’s office had to document the progress made by today’s deadline. But the Thursday ruling quoted part of that opinion, saying it was the state’s responsibility to “correct the constitutional deficiencies.”
Huckabee, a defendant in the case during much of its existence, said in a statement that the court is “out of control” and that he was “disgusted” with the ruling.
“This court is out of compliance,” he said.
Legislative reaction was generally disappointment with the court.
Senate President Pro Tempore Jim Argue, D-Little Rock, chairman of the Senate Education Committee, said the court should have been more clear previously.
“I think the court should have spelled out a year ago what response they expected from the parties,” Argue said. “Instead, they were silent on the issue. We could have supplied that response last May. Remember, the Legislature made the decision with [Huckabee] to convene last April, even though the court’s deadline wasn’t until Dec. 1. Now we’ve wasted nine months.”
The other districts involved in the case are Little Rock, Pulaski County and Barton-Lexa.
Matthews said he would argue that the state needs to provide more operational funding for growing districts, more money to teach students that don’t speak English well, more money for facilities for growing districts, and address inconsistent property tax collection rates from district to district.
Incoming House Speaker Benny Petrus, D-Stuttgart, and incoming Senate President Pro Tempore Jack Critcher, D-Batesville, stood behind Beebe’s handling of the case and criticized the court for keeping it open.
“In the past, the Legislature bent over backwards to try to comply with the court order,” Critcher said. “What [the court has] done today is create a serious adversarial relationship between the Supreme Court and the Legislature. I think the Legislature will view any future orders along that line with less credibility. Maybe they should turn the whole thing over to David Matthews. It’s obvious he is calling the shots.”
Petrus was less upset.
“Am I disappointed they didn’t close the case? Sure,” Petrus said.
“But they have been loo
