Posted by Pr. Lee Hudson, director of LOPP/MD
ELCA Lutherans have an interest in Maryland covering its structural deficit. Why? Last August the ELCA biennial assembly adopted a new social statement on education (“Our Calling in Education,” 2007). As every statement now does, this one has goals for ELCA advocacy at the federal and state levels. It turns out these goals are timely for Maryland’s special session. Two of the statement’s implementing resolutions say-
12} To call upon this church’s advocacy ministries to support legislative initiatives that improve public schools and ensure excellent education for all students in ways that are consistent with this social statement and support financial aid and tuition policies that provide more equitable access to higher education for low- and middle-income students;
13} To call upon this church’s advocacy ministry to support legislative initiatives that ensure adequate funding and support for students with disabilities. Maryland’s plan to meet all three benchmarks (
ensuring excellent public education,
equitable access to higher education, and
adequate funding for special education) has resulted in the so-called structural deficit. The “Bridge to Excellence” plan, known by the name of the State commission that proposed it,
Thornton, has caused Maryland’s deficit.
It’s worth remembering how the State came to
Thornton now that many want to abandon or revise it. The motivation came when several of Maryland’s subdivisions prepared to take the State to court over equitable education funding. Some school districts were spending twice the amount on their students as others were able to do. Since the State is constitutionally mandated to provide for public education, funding equity is a
State, not a jurisdictional issue.
In other states where similar suits had been brought courts imposed financial settlements to equalize education funding. Maryland quickly decided it didn’t want that to happen here. One reason is that well-financed school systems like Montgomery and Howard counties stood to lose hundreds of millions in state dollars for education to a court settlement. If the courts simply equalized the funding per student there were going to be big losers as well as winners.
And so there was
Thornton, a complex multi-year plan to increase State education funding without harming the jurisdictions and accounting for different cost indices, disabled students, and a host of other details. One key element, now being discarded, accounts for inflation so that the equalization process wouldn’t flatten out again over time.
When
Thornton passed in 2002 nearly everyone thought it was a great deal. Few were prepared to finance it, however. Regular revenue growth kept
Thornton nearly on schedule until now. When Governor O’Malley says he inherited this problem he is absolutely right. A revenue-day-of-reckoning resulting from
Thornton was always known to be coming this year or next. When the real estate market sagged and revenue from property taxes went flat, it was this year.
The State also made commitments to provide affordable higher educations at its public institutions for Maryland school graduates, albeit more informally than
Thornton. The business community, now opposed to covering the structural deficit, expects affordable higher ed as a public good in the form of workforce development. Over the years Maryland’s done a good job keeping excellent (in the language of the ELCA social statement) higher education available to Maryland students, with beneficial results. Our highly educated workforce is one reason we’re the wealthiest state in the U.S.
Now it appears the political will to maintain these public commitments is evaporating. We can have lower taxes than some other states. But it will cost something in the tangible public commodity of the workforce and in the equal opportunity necessary for a just social arrangement. The specter of lawsuits reappearing is also not beyond the realm of possibility.
ELCA Lutherans serve our neighbors through our civic relationships. We’re now called to advocate for equal access to excellent education. LOPP/MD’s nuanced positions were developed by the board early last summer;
adequate public revenues,
progressively raised, and
opposition to gambling.
When fully operational,
in six years according to the State’s analysis, slots are expected to gross $1.3 billion a year. That’s the “take,” meaning what gamblers lose. To reach that level $13 billion a year must be wagered, to give you some sense of the scale of what’s proposed. Maybe the State gets $650 million of that, an inefficient revenue instrument if ever there was one. The “take” doesn’t account for the costs of hosting and in slots states most of the losses come from people within a few miles of the facilities. Baltimore and Laurel disproportionately will pay for that excellent education. That’s an unfair deal all around.
