My turn
By Ron VandenBoom
Thousands are reported to have rallied at the capital Saturday to express their support for education and demand that the Legislature increase funding for K-12 education.
The rally was the most visible example yet of how disparate Montana's budget is supposed to be and how unhappy many people are over its expected shortfall.
On Friday, the House Appropriations Committee hacked about $10 million from the budget on the back of state agencies, telling them to cut employees and reduce travel over the biennium. The action will give the state an estimated $44 million surplus to meet emergency expenses for the next two years.
The action is expected to cost 148 government jobs, including some from the university system.
K-12 schools, if Gov. Judy Martz's HB-121 passes, have been asked to settle for no additional increase in their budget this year and settle for only a 3 percent increase, or $13 million more, for 2002.
To the casual observer, the budget crisis might appear unexpected and even unprecedented, but occasionally a tidbit of truth slips through the shouts of offended protesters that causes one to scratch their head and wonder what's going on.
Take for example the brief note in the Saturday Great Falls Tribune that stated even with the cuts, the loss of jobs and the under-funded education budget, this Legislature will increase overall spending by 6.9 percent or $149 million.
What's going on?
Also unnoticed by most Helena protesters Saturday was that, according to the Montana Office of Budget and Program Planning, the Office of Public Instruction (OPI) from 1989-2001 increased its staff by over 13 percent while increasing its budget by over 75 percent.
What's going on?
Also unnoticed and un-protested Saturday was the fact that, according to OPI figures, from 1995-2000, Montana's enrollment dropped by 6,784 students while the number of school district employees rose by 272.
What's going on?
Montana's Legislative Fiscal Division reports that only 56.7 percent of an estimated $1.2 billion biennium education budget, or $680 million, goes to teaching students and only about 53 percent of the employees are classroom teachers. Why was there was no protest about that.
What's going on?
Montana will spend, according to Gov. Martz, $6,300 per student during the next biennium making Montana's dollar to student ratio the 11th highest in the nation.
What's going on?
Forgotten too in all the protests is the 3 percent increase in funding the schools received last September from the special session of the Legislature for 2001. It was that increase that seems to have been forgotten when protesters complain that Martz's budget gives a zero percent increase for 2001.
What's going on?
Well, what's going on is that Montana needs to revamp the way it funds its educational system and taxpayer dollars should be spent more wisely. Montana also needs to find better ways of retaining and attracting quality teachers without using dollars that should be spent on the kids.
There is no doubt that a declining student population and the rising cost of providing that education has hit local school districts hard.
It is still just as expensive to transport 20 kids to school in a bus as it is 40. It costs just as much to heat a building for 500 students as it is for 800. It's just as costly to pay a teacher to teach 15 students as it is 20.
But school systems continue to receive less and less funding to provide services that do not decrease in cost with the number of students.
The problem is in the current system of tying funding to the number of students. It's a system that just plain doesn't work.
But you don't fix the system by screaming at the Legislature to throw more money down the rabbit hole. To do so defies logic and is demeaning to the education profession and to taxpayers alike. You also need to be sure the money you get is wisely spent.
What supporters of education should have been backing Saturday is a demand the system be fixed and waste be eliminated.
Solutions to the problem can only be found when the Legislature and those charged with providing the service sit down together to find workable solutions. Problems are not solved simply by demanding more money.
