Unfunded mandates
Published January 20, 2017
by Thomas Mills, Politics NC, January 19, 2017.
I’m old enough to remember when Republicans pummeled Democrats for unfunded mandates. Unfunded mandates are regulations or requirements passed by legislatures or Congress without the money to pay for them. That’s exactly what Republicans are doing to our public school system.
The North Carolina legislature passed a law lowering class sizes for kindergartners through third grade. That’s a good idea except that the Republicans in the General Assembly didn’t include money for the classroom space needed to meet the new requirement. In response, school districts across the state say they might need to cut arts and physical education programs. That’s bad for schools and bad for our children. It’s also the epitome of an unfunded mandate.
At the same time, Republicans are crowing about a potential budget surplus. The state is apparently $322 million ahead of schedule in tax collections. Last year, the state had a surplus of $1 billion. Really, though, the state isn’t running a surplus. Republicans aren’t paying their bills and sticking local governments with the tab. That’s not a surplus. That’s bait and switch.
In North Carolina, state government is responsible for funding public education. Local governments are responsible for school construction. However, when state laws, not growth, require more classrooms, the legislature should fund those classrooms, especially in poorer counties.
Instead of helping schools, though, the Republicans in the legislature will probably make more tax cuts. For them, passing money on to their wealthy benefactors is more politically palatable than helping schools systems build classrooms. We’ll hear plenty from them about how many taxes they’ve cut and very little about how many governments and people they’ve shortchanged.
Personally, I’m not opposed to some GOP ideas about reforming public schools. I believe we need smaller class sizes, even smaller than they’ve proposed. I’m also not against charter schools if they’re used to provide alternatives to traditional classrooms and have proper oversight and accountability. But I’m vehemently against shifting the financial burden for public education from the state to the counties and I believe that we need to fully fund public education.
Reforming public education should mean improving the educational experience of our children, not spending less money or passing the buck from state government to local school districts.
