Court Opinion

ID: 9612511
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 04:09:25.058502+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:42:27.481550
License: Public Domain

ALMA WILSON, Justice,
dissenting:
If the majority holds that the patchwork of legislative “planning” which is before this Court upholds the original intent of the framers of the Oklahoma Constitution, I must dissent. The majority intimates that if we had been presented a case alleging that the school funding resulted in inadequate education, the question may have been answered differently. Although I cannot read the intent of the framers to mean absolutely equal funding, I read it clearly to say that it must be fair.
The issue is: “Does the present legislative scheme carry out the original intent of the constitution in their provision for the schooling of all the children in the State of Oklahoma?” If year after year there is legislatively perpetuated greater and continued disparity favoring those districts with more legislative clout then the clear purpose and intent of the constitutional framers for schooling has been violated. The most egregious example of this perpetuated unfairness is the “hold harmless” formula found in title 70, § 18-112 and revised each year since 1981. By legislative recognition it was designed to soften the impact on current projects of “favored” schools and permit funding to be gradually withdrawn. By this formula, the legislature implicitly recognized that the legislative supplement of less well funded schools was due to geographic bad luck. If a child were schooled in a bleak ad valorem based community, the legislature first recognized that the ad valorem base had to be supplemented to enable “fair schooling” in those counties without adequate ad valorem based funding. Then “hold harmless” was the device to prevent favored economic status from being removed all at once from school districts which were relying on current programs. But the phase-out contemplated has never occurred.
Such legislation is the educational equivalent of sending one child to a thrift shop to buy his school clothes while the neighboring child is sent to the tailor to have his clothes handmade. I suppose we can say that both were clothed.
I am not persuaded by the list of authorities from sister states that find their state funding schemes constitutional in spite of inequality. Where Article 1, § 5; article 11, §§ 2, 3, and 4; and all of article 13 of the Oklahoma Constitution concern education and its funding, one can be safe in concluding that the subject was of great importance to the framers. Black’s Law Dictionary, Fifth Edition, defines “fundamental law” as “The law which determines the constitution of government in a nation or state, and prescribes and regulates the manner of its exercise. The organic law of a nation or state; its constitution.” Black’s defines “fundamental rights” as “Those which have their origin in the express terms of the Constitution or which are necessarily to be implied from those terms.” Citing, Sidle v. Majors, 264 Ind. 206, 341 N.E.2d 763 (1976).
I would find that education is a fundamental right in this State, and that the funding for education must be fair if not equal. The legislature has stated that its *1154intent is to provide an equitable funding formula for all the school districts in this State. 1987 Okla.Sess.Laws, ch. 204, § 81 (amending 70 O.S.Supp.1986, § 18-109.2). Section 83 of that same chapter would reduce the “hold harmless” grant by one-third. Section 81(A) provides that no district having a per pupil revenue in excess of three hundred percent of the average per pupil revenue of all districts shall receive any State Aid or Supplement in State Aid. Perhaps this new legislation will come nearer making the school funding fair. I would hold in abeyance further action in order to give the legislature an opportunity to remove “hold harmless” altogether, and to permit them to meet responsibly their duty to fairly fund the common schools of Oklahoma.