LITTLE ROCK (AP) A legislative panel has recommended the state reserve an additional $48 million for public schools to help cover fuel costs for the two school years that will follow the one that begins this month.
Members of the Joint Adequacy Evaluation Oversight Subcommittee agreed Wednesday to recommend the funding be distributed to the school districts above the $286 per student the districts get each year to cover transportation. The proposal calls for reserving $24 million each of the two years.
The subcommittee adopted the recommendation in a voice vote, though there was some dissent.
Sen. Dave Bisbee, R-Rogers, voted against the motion, saying he disagreed with the method distributing the money. The districts would get the funding based on a formula that takes into account how many miles are covered by a district's buses.
Bisbee said the Legislature should not allocate some transportation funding on a per-student basis and some according to need.
"That's a very, very poor road to go down. Just because you're trying to fix a problem doesn't mean the fix is good," he said. Bisbee said no other funding is appropriated the way the $24 million would be.
Rep. Bill Abernathy, D-Mena, said the per-student method provides too much transportation money to some districts and not enough to others.
"We have school districts that transport 90 percent ... of their student body and districts that transport 10 percent of the student body, and each of them gets $286 per student," Abernathy said.
He said high fuel prices are already causing problems for school districts, though the enhanced funding would not become available until the 2009-2010 school year.
"Whatever we do now, school districts are going through this next year without any additional money, so they're going to be hurting," he said.
Sen. Jim Argue, D-Little Rock, questioned whether the $24 million figure would hold up. Abernathy said the total may be higher once more information is available on how much trouble the districts are having because of high fuel costs.
The $286 per student the districts get comes to $128 million a year, based on the state having 450,000 public school students. Adding $24 million would be an 18.6 percent increase from the current fiscal 2009 to fiscal 2010. Argue questioned whether the increase would mirror price increases.
Richard Wilson, assistant director of the Bureau of Legislative Research, said the agency predicts districts to pay 17 percent more in 2010 but that 2011 may bring an 8 percent decrease.
"The expected price of oil is expected to decline from 2010 to 2011," Wilson said. "Whether or not that occurs, we can argue about."
