April 17, 2009
This has been a relatively quiet week in the State House. The House is holding hearings on Senate bills. We meet in session next week to address a very light calendar–only three bills on the regular calendar and a number on consent. The Education Committee, on which I serve, did hear the bill to ensure accountability in the delivery of an adequate education. The bill is assigned to a subcommittee for further work. At first pass, it appears that are taking the basic structure of what is done now in the state, asking the districts to do more, and labeling it as accountability. We need to make sure that we don’t overburden our local communities, and don’t end up with a state run education system. We need to maintain the little bit of local control we have left.
I read a report today that the House has gone to the Senate in an effort to restore School Building Aid to the local communities. It appears that the objective is to bond the building aid and use a portion of the rooms and meals tax to fund the bond payments. The bonding of School Building Aid is a bad idea, one I have written about previously. The local community will bond their school construction costs. The state contributes to the local communities principal payment cost (approximately 30%). The state proposes to borrow to pay for borrowed costs. This equates to using a master card to pay a visa. This is bad public policy and poor financial management. This takes us down the road of escalating our budget and financial obligations. School Building Aid had always been paid in the operating budget. The operating budget has grown so significantly that the state can’t fund the basic promises such as school building aid. We will see how the Senate responds.