GRAMA Got Run Over By a Ramrod

I have been posting a lot about education but I have been interested in other bills as well. While the media is focusing on the torrent of immigration bills, a few have slipped in, perhaps in the hopes they will pass under the radar. The news media didn't let it happen in the case of HB477 Government Records Amendments. This one will be called the GRAMA bill of the year.

GRAMA stands for Government Records Access and Management Act, which was passed in 1992 and clarifies what records are protected as private information and which records are available to the public. According to the Constitution, many records must be open to the public. A GRAMA request is used to force government agencies to make records available. It is often through government records accessed through GRAMA that investigative journalists expose corruption or track down improprieties. It is a good safeguard for citizens.

The difficulties arise when individuals or organizations make unreasonable GRAMA requests that bog down government office employees. Government officials tell of news media on "fishing expeditions" looking for anything that might make a story but causing a lot of work for record keepers, many times at great expense to taxpayers.

Legislators also are told that they must keep records of communications, including those that are written or audio recordings, on paper or digital. They say that they are uncomfortable placing their email messages and phone messages open to the public. They feel that their constituents assume that their messages are private. The sheer number of emails that a politician receives is mind-boggling. It is bothersome to collect and still more bothersome to store them all, on the chance that someone will ask to search the records. On the other hand, would we have known that Governor Blagojevich was auctioning off the Illinois Senate seat, had his phone calls been protected communication?

HB477 would protect messages to legislators and would require those who request records to pay for the cost of the items and the time of the staff who searches for them. This is meant to make folks think twice before making voluminous requests for records.

Whether the bill should pass is no longer debatable; it passed three days after it was introduced. Whether the bill should have passed is debatable. The bill passed way too fast. There is a reason why a three day period is necessary for a bill to be passed on the Consent Calendar. There should be time for the bill to be studied, not only by the legislators but by the public and the media. To wait until the last days so that it passes from one house to the next and is signed, sealed, and delivered in less than a week is not good public policy.

Which Tax is the "Best" Tax?

An important pair of bills that I am still trying to get my head around have to do with public school funding. One, HB 301, changes how district schools can levy property tax increases. The other, HB 313, requires school districts to share with charter schools the funds that they get from property tax. This is what I know so far about these bills and the history behind them:

Currently, charter schools cannot claim property tax money. The state makes up the difference from income taxes. When charter schools were first approved in Utah, the claim was that they would be so much more efficiently-run that they could provide education for less and didn’t need the property tax funds. They do receive the WPU from the state and the state has a special line item in the general education budget that helps them with capital and start up expenses.

If these two bills are passed, the extra expenses to the state income tax for charter schools will go away and local property taxes will have to pick up the slack. The bill sponsor claims that having school districts responsible for the cost of funding charter schools in their boundaries is a matter of local control but all of the public school entities (except the charter school administrators) are protesting. The districts have no control over the charter schools in their districts. It would be like telling you as a household that you were responsible for the cost of maintaining your neighbor’s house and grocery bill without giving you a say in how they furnish their home or what food they purchase. This is not local control; it is an unfunded mandate. It also guarantees that your property taxes will go up. This will affect you whether you own your home or rent, since landlords will pass on the expense. Seniors who own their homes but are surviving on a fixed income will be hit hardest. If these bills were combined, they would probably not pass. They look likely to pass one gulp at a time.

Some are seeing a connection between these bills and vouchers. For that perspective, see this.

Tying Citizens' Hands

If you were involved or interested in the historic referendum on education vouchers a few years ago or involved or interested in the petition drive for the Fair Boundaries or Legislative Ethics reform initiatives last year, you might be interested in a bill by Senator Bramble which is opening up this part of state law again.

As you may remember, after the success of the voucher referendum, the Legislature passed several laws that would make it increasingly difficult to qualify another citizen-led petition for the ballot. In this way they managed to hold off legislative ethics reform and the creation of an independent redistricting commission in 2010.

As the deadline for the Fair Boundaries and ethics reform petition drives neared, both groups were having difficulty gathering the increased number of signatures in the shortened span of time. They began using electronic signature gathering in order to speed up the process.

There was no law prohibiting this method. Electronic signatures can be verified and, in fact, are used for online voter registration. In spite of that, the Lt. Governor was unwilling to accept these signatures for the petition drive and this spurred quite a bit of debate.

Senator Bramble’s bill is designed to close the debate by prohibiting electronic signatures from petition drives. It also tightens once more the time allotted to collect signatures. Ironically, the same bill validates electronic signatures for voter registration up to 15 days prior to an election.

This bill appeared harmless in the original form (see http://le.utah.gov/~2011/bills/sbillint/sb0165.htm). The second substitute claimed to hold only a minor amendment but there were many more provisions included (see http://le.utah.gov/~2011/bills/sbillint/sb0165s01.htm). It will be interesting to see what other obstacles lay in store to a citizen’s right to petition government.

It was obvious what initiatives were targeted by earlier restrictions to the process. It makes me wonder what Senator Bramble fears now.

Attitude Shift

As I sat in the House Education Committee meeting, I overheard an individual state to his neighbor, “Education money should follow the student where ever they go to school.”

This is an assumption that the State will fund, at least in part, each student’s education. If this assumption is universally accepted, it will have long-range impacts on public schools. It represents a subtle shift in the concept of public education.

The establishment of public education in the 1890’s put a school system in place that would service children in their neighborhoods. It was clearly understood that we have a stronger community and a brighter future when our children are educated. We can take pride that we offer education to all comers. Over time, programs have been created to address the many different abilities and challenges of an increasingly diverse population.

At the same time, there has never been a requirement that families must choose the public schools for their children’s education. Just as you are free to choose a private doctor for medical care, you are free to choose a private school for education. The County Health Department remains an option funded by tax dollars.

In more populous areas, more options for education do spring up. But often in the very rural regions of the state, public education is the only option and it is a much more expensive program to offer. They do not enjoy economy of scale, or as you may have heard: things are “cheaper by the dozen.”

When attempts to properly and equitably fund education resulted in creating the WPU, or “weighted pupil unit”, it also created the idea that each child in the state was entitled to education money in the amount of this WPU. It was not a stretch to decide that each child should receive the amount of money the state would spend toward educating him/her in public schools.

I am very committed to public schools and I appreciate that they provide quality teachers, innovative programs, and diverse opportunities for my children. I want my children to mix with others in their neighborhood. I want them to understand their communities by seeing themselves and their neighbors as one unit. Because of this, I am anxious to step up and help all I can to improve the education that public schools provide. It doesn’t mean I think all families must or should choose public education for their children nor that I think public funds should go to the alternative schools they may choose.

The issue boils down to whether we are financing public education or funding the education of each child. These two attitudes are subtly different but are colliding in the Legislature.

Don't Trust Rumors

I said in a recent post that partisan elections of State School Board members would not be brought up. I was wrong. SB224 is called Partisan School Board Elections. It is scheduled for a committee hearing this afternoon. Judging from the reception to the bill calling for non-partisan election of State School Board members, it is probably headed to easy passage -- unless enough voters contact their senators and representatives and talk them out of voting for it. A poll conducted last fall showed that the majority of Utahns believed that education is best served when partisan politics are kept away.

Get an answering machine

I wrote about SB142 in an earlier post. It requires all elected officials to have their direct contact information available to the public. It affects public schools particularly because members of School Community Councils are elected officials. It has now passed the Senate and the House and is on its way to the Governor's office for his signature.

It was amended along the way to say that email addresses and phone numbers must be posted online “if available”. That means that members of Community Councils who don’t have a computer and therefore no direct email availability, aren’t required to get a computer with internet access in order to serve – same with a phone.

The other thing I think of with regard to this bill is the amendment that added the word "directly". This means that if you want to contact the Governor, you should be able to call a phone number that goes to him directly. Will his secretary or intern answer the phone? Will this be considered direct? If it is allowed, it will definitely be a disadvantage to School Community Council members that they do not have personal secretaries or interns.

I would feel better if the posted contact information were only available to their constituents, for example through password-protected PowerSchool, but I am not certain that this would satisfy the new law.

Holding the Reins of Education

The Senate debated SJR9, the resolution that would amend the State Constitution so that education, K-12 and higher education (UVU, MATC, U of U, etc.), would become a department in the Governor’s administration, subject to the rules made by the legislature, instead of being controlled by the elected State Board of Education. The resolution passed the Senate with a two-thirds majority and will now be sent to the House. If it passes the House with a two-thirds majority, it will be on the November ballot in 2012, when voters can decide whether to amend the State Constitution this way. As rigorous as this may seem, remember that last November every Constitution amendment question on the ballot was approved by the voters.

There is another resolution removing control from the State Board of Education, as is currently a provision in the State Constitution. SJR1 would have put the control of education strictly in the hands of the legislature. While SJR9 is moving forward, the sponsor of SJR1 is dropping his resolution in favor of SJR9.

Those who are guarding the interest of the School Trust Lands have a concern about this resolution. The management of the School Trust (SITLA) is a department under the office of the Governor. Public education is the beneficiary of the Trust. It is bad fiduciary policy for the manager of a trust to be the same person as the beneficiary.

In regard to the election of members to the State Board of Education, the excitement to make the elections partisan seems to be cooling and I believe it is because it could be found unconstitutional. The State Constitution prohibits partisan qualifications for employment by the public schools. Since the Board members are paid to serve, they are considered employees. There is still a bill calling for partisan elections but I have heard rumors that it may be abandoned.