Pulaski County Circuit Judge Chris Piazza rejected arguments from state lawyers Tuesday that sovereign immunity shields Arkansas from a lawsuit challenging the state's school-funding system and should be dismissed.
But Piazza said he'd be willing to reconsider after the sides have had more time to exchange evidence in the pretrial discovery process and further develop their arguments.
The immunity doctrine protects the state from all litigation unless the plaintiff, the Deer-Mount Judea School District, can prove that authorities broke the law or exceeded their legal authority, and there's no evidence that's happened, Assistant Attorney General Rosalyn Middleton told the judge. The district's complaints are based mostly on speculation and conjecture, she said.
But the judge pointed to an October 2013 Arkansas Supreme Court ruling that overturned his December 2012 decision to dismiss the suit based on findings that the issues raised by the district had been decided in earlier litigation, including the landmark Lake View lawsuit. That lawsuit, of which Deer-Mount Judea was a party, found the funding system unconstitutional and led to a legislative overhaul of school financing.
Piazza said he wanted to make sure the high court's findings were addressed fully before he made a decision on whether the lawsuit would go to trial.
The Supreme Court holding revived Deer-Mount Judea's complaints that geographically isolated school districts were not receiving enough money to provide an adequate education.
In its 2010 lawsuit against the state Department of Education, the district claimed the state failed to conduct some mandated funding adequacy studies, then subsequently failed to make necessary funding adjustments based on those studies.
The district, located in Newton County, also complained that rural districts were not receiving adequate transportation funding and that cost-of-living adjustments were based on available funds, not on the districts' needs.
Act 57 of 2003 established the state's current educational-funding structure. Under the act, legislators designate funding for a target district size of 500 students, using factors such as transportation and personnel.
That calculation is used to create a per-student funding amount distributed to all districts according to their enrollment levels.
Districts with fewer than 350 students are deemed by the state as too small to guarantee an adequate education. Those districts can either voluntarily merge with another district or be forced to merge by the state Education Board.
Metro on 05/06/2015