Committee begins to scrutinize public school funding

By Nancy Badertscher

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

With backing from top state leaders, a committee of lawmakers and educators on Thursday launched a months-long study that could lead to some of the biggest changes in public school financing in Georgia in almost 25 years.

Officials acknowledged that some are skeptical about significant reforms resulting from the committee's work.

The Quality Basic Education Act, which set up the current state funding formula for schools, has largely gone unchanged since its creation in 1985, despite the work of five previous committees.

"Expectations are relatively low," John Brown, director of the House Budget Office, told the latest committee at its kick-off meeting. "I wouldn't call them [the previous committees] failures. It's just that we didn't get recommendations that translated into change."

The General Assembly earlier this year passed legislation creating the sixth and current 20-member committee, including key legislators, State School Superintendent John Barge and newly appointed University System Chancellor Hank Huckaby.

The committee will look at revamping or replacing the QBE formula, which officials say has not really been adjusted through the years to take into account schools' increasing need for technology or issues such as the rising costs of textbooks.

But the committee's work could go far beyond -- covering a myriad of other funding issues from charter schools and school choice to virtual schools and private-school scholarships. It also takes place as local school systems have collectively taken more than $1 billion in state austerity cuts and have been forced to cut programs and furlough teachers.

Top state leaders tried to stress that the committee's work is important and overdue, with appearances by House Speaker David Ralston and Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle.

"Forget the fact that we have not solved it in the past," Ralston said. "Not solving it now is no longer an option."

Cagle said the current system "funds programs as opposed to funding the needs of kids.

"We as a state need to see phenomenal improvement," he said, adding that any changes need to include flexibility, paired with accountability, for local school districts.

About 55 percent of the state budget is earmarked for education at all levels -- 35 percent directly to K-12 public schools, Brown said.

He told committee members that he expects the changes they recommend will require increased state spending.

But he said the timing of their recommendations -- including some interim ones due out in September -- is good, since by 2014, the state's finances should be improving. Even still, he said, committee members will likely need to set priorities that can be addressed as funding becomes available.

He urged the committee to use the current enrollment-driven funding formula as a starting point, saying local school districts, for budgeting purposes, need the predictability that it provides.

QBE was set up with the objective of providing enough funding so all students, regardless of the wealth or location of their community, can receive an adequate education, Brown said.

Even now, he said: "We are not going to come up with a system that reaches for excellence. We are not putting an orchestra in every school," he said. We are going to create a formula so that every school system has enough money to get the basic job done.”