Fed role in school funding debated

Benjamin Grove

Friday, June 15, 2001 | 4:37 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Congress approved a massive education bill this week that would launch a variety of new programs, including testing and reading initiatives.

But the sweeping legislation included no money for one Nevada interest: school construction.

Congress stuck to a long-standing philosophy that local districts should pay for local projects. Federal funds inevitably carry restrictive regulations, many lawmakers say.

"The money is more efficiently spent if it stays local," Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., said.

Still, as fast-growing districts such as Clark County scramble to build schools and rural districts try to renovate old ones, some lawmakers on Capitol Hill are stirring up a new debate: Maybe it's time federal tax money helped pay for school construction and repair.

Schools nationwide rely almost entirely on local money and that's simply not enough, according to some education groups and lawmakers, including Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev.

"There is a school of thought that the federal government doesn't have a role in funding schools -- that it is primarily a local issue," said Robert Canahan, chairman of Rebuild America's Schools, a national coalition of groups and school districts that are lobbying for federal money.

"The argument we would make is that states and school districts don't have the resources to afford the majority of construction needs that they have right now."

Lawmakers who lost battles to include construction and repair money in the education bill have launched efforts to get money via the appropriations process later this year.

In one effort, lawmakers debated whether to continue a program begun last year that made $1.2 billion available to districts nationwide for emergency repairs.

House and Senate Republican leaders have blocked efforts led by Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, to renew the program -- and expand it to $1.6 billion next year. Harkin tried to attach the legislation to the education bill, but failed by one vote. Republicans opposed it; Democrats supported it. One lawmaker, Sen. Jean Carnahan, D-Mo., was absent.

Spending federal money on local school construction means saddling districts with tight regulations on how to spend it, Ensign said.

"You end up building fewer schools," he said.

Nevada is eligible for about $5.5 million of the $1.2 billion approved last year, and the state is applying to get the money from the federal Education Department. Grants should be available next month. Clark County would qualify for most of the money, Doug Thunder, deputy state superintendent of finances, said.

But $5.5 million would be a drop in the bucket compared to multibillion-dollar local spending.

"It would be helpful, but it will just begin to address the needs," Thunder said.

Clark County has never waited around for federal money for schools.

The county is in the midst of one of the largest school construction and renovation projects in the nation. County voters in 1994, 1996 and 1998 approved roughly $3.7 billion in tax increases for 129 new schools and renovations at more than 200 buildings. Casino and real estate fees also help finance the effort.

Federal money would be more valuable to struggling rural Nevada districts, most officials agree.

For instance, taxpayers in Nye County, the third largest county in the nation, approved a $14 million bond issue to pay for a new middle school in 1998.

But Nye's 15 other schools, flung over 18,000 square miles, need $54 million worth of repairs, according to a survey completed five years ago, Nye County Schools Maintenance Supervisor Don Brod said.

Needs include peeling paint at Beatty Elementary/Middle School and $196,000 in health and safety repairs at the small cluster of K-12 school buildings in Gabbs, population 660.

Brod's maintenance budget shrunk to about $150,000 last year when the district had to buy new buses.

Brod wishes Congress would throw a little money toward rural Nevada. At one point he even wrote a letter to former President Bill Clinton, telling him that if the federal government would pay for teachers, it ought to pay for classrooms and improvements.

"I'm sure this is true of a lot of rural areas: There are a lot of needs but not a lot of money," Brod said.

Congress is also mulling plans to spur school construction. A bill introduced by Reps. Nancy Johnson, R-Conn., and Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., would effectively offer school districts interest-free bonds to pay for new buildings.

Bonds are essentially loans from financial institutions such as banks. The Johnson-Rangel legislation allows districts to pay back loans on the bonds while the government pays for the loan interest in the form of tax breaks to the lender.

Congress approved a similar, but much smaller, tax-break plan as part of President Bush's $1.35 trillion tax cut.

But senators have not considered the more expansive Johnson-Rangel bill. And Republican leaders on the House Education Committee bottled up the legislation.

"The problem is the leadership of the Republican party really doesn't believe the federal government should be involved in social services," Rangel said, hinting at the larger debate. "We're fighting for more teachers and more schools. But they have to be paid for. Local districts ... are screaming out for a little help."

Berkley last week stood with Rangel and other lawmakers at a press conference to announce a plan to force a vote on the Johnson-Rangel bill on the House floor, even if the Education Committee won't approve it.

To do that, a majority of the House, 218 lawmakers, must sign a "Discharge Petition." Late last week, 196 had signed it.

Berkley said Congress has a responsibility to funnel federal money to local districts for school construction and repairs.

"Education is a parents issue, a local issue, a state issue -- and it's a national issue," Berkley said.

It's certainly an expensive issue, surveys say. America's schools need at least $200 billion in infrastructure improvements, according to the American Institute of Architects. The National Education Association, a national teachers union, says it's more like $300 billion.

Cost is a part of the historical reluctance in Congress to get involved in school construction.

Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, chairman of the House Education Committee that held up the Johnson-Rangel bill, said earmarking funds for construction and repairs is not the best way to spend education money. Better to give districts federal money with freedom to spend it on greatest needs, he said.

Johnson-Rangel has "serious flaws that will amount to substantial micromanaging of education by the federal government," Boehner spokeswoman Heather Valentine said.

And Rep. Bill Archer, R-Texas, chairman of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee, has called the bill "wrong-headed" because there are so many other education needs.

The philosophical debate spilled into a Senate hearing last month, when Harkin and Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., grilled Education Secretary Roderick Paige. Paige as superintendent of Houston schools asked Congress for school construction money.

"We needed it bad," Paige said, according to a hearing transcript.

But Paige has changed his mind as a Bush Cabinet member, partly because he now believes paying for school construction is not the role of Congress.

"I think that we need to examine to determine where the federal role starts and ends, because I do not know if the federal government is capable of managing this one," he said.

Part of the resistance is political, Canahan said. For instance, Clinton backed the Harkin initiative last year, and some Republicans distastefully associate it with him, he said.

"It's hard for students to lift themselves up in schools that are falling down," Clinton said just a month before the November election.

Still, lawmakers in recent years have given more serious thought to freeing up federal money for schools, Canahan said.

Education is a hot issue in America, making it hard for politicians to turn away as schools continue to age and swell with students, observers say.

"The federal government provides funding to build and repair roads and prisons -- why not schools?" National Education Association President Bob Chase asked. "Passage of the school modernization bill will be a true test of bipartisanship and Congress' commitment to children and public education."

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