No public funds should be used for private lawsuit
Eleven more schools have joined a lawsuit against the state that claims education is underfunded in South Dakota. That brings the total to 85, roughly half of the state’s districts.
The most recent 11, however, have only voiced their support, and have not added to the growing kitty of funds that has been collected to fight the lawsuit.
We don’t agree with the suit. We have said that for a year now, and our explanation is that we don’t believe that creating an adversarial relationship between the Legislature and the schools is a logical solution. Plus, the suit is virtually the same as one that was brought forth in the 1990s and failed. And the number of students in the state has decreased over the years, too. At the time of the last suit, there were 135,494 pre-kindergarten through 12th-grade students in the state; last year, there were 121,558.
And lawmakers — those we have elected to represent us — obviously do not feel there is that much of a funding shortfall. Although they have made small strides — strides that we feel could have been larger — in recent years, lawmakers have not voted as a unit to make large increases. Suing the people we have sent to Pierre to make decisions for us runs against the democratic process.
And now Attorney General Larry Long has brought up an interesting point.
No schools are listed as plaintiffs in the case, which claims schools are underfunded by $134 million to as much as $400 million a year. School districts have put up more than $100,000 for the fight, yet the plaintiffs are students and parents selected from school districts statewide and not the school districts themselves.
Long’s office has filed an official complaint and will ask a Hughes County court to make a determination, probably within the next few weeks. We await the decision with much interest, since it could steer the case in a new direction.
At last check, all of the plaintiffs are from eastern South Dakota, and many live within school districts in the Mitchell region. Even if this were a private suit against the state — and one that was funded entirely by private dollars — we would disagree with its claims. We admit we would feel slightly better about it, however.
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