
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 4, 1992                   TAG: 9203040293
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

DON'T FORGET SCHOOL DISPARITY

VIRGINIA'S General Assembly slouches toward adjournment. And if lawmakers aren't careful, adjournment may spawn a lulu of a lawsuit that could cost the state big bucks - and control over its own school system.

In short, as conferees work toward tonight's deadline for submitting a reconciliation of budget differences between the House and Senate, let school-disparity money not be forgotten.

If it is, it will mark a disgraceful abdication of responsibility on the part of both Gov. Wilder and the assembly.

Almost everybody who's looked at the disparity issue has agreed on two points.

First, it would be better to resolve the issue legislatively than in the courts. The latter would divert money from schools to lawyers' fees, would take forever and a day to resolve, and could eventually lead to judge-controlled schools.

Second, there can be no meaningful steps toward a solution without putting more state money into the schools. In part, this would be to avoid the political impracticality of getting more money to poor districts by taking it from affluent ones. More fundamentally, additional funds would be required simply because much of the current inequity stems from the state's failure to fund fully the school-aid formula it already has.

Yet the Wilder administration, while perfectly willing to propose a disparity plan, could not offer the slightest hint - in the plan itself or in the governor's proposed budget - about how to pay for the effort.

The General Assembly did better . . . maybe. The Senate's version of the budget includes $116 million in new school money. Not enough, but at least a beginning. The money, however, was to come from an increase in the tax rate on joint incomes in excess of $100,000. The tax increase was killed in the House.

For its part, the House agreed to Majority Leader Richard Cranwell's disparity-money plan, part of a package that included a half-cent increase in the state sales tax and road bonds that would benefit education-affluent Northern Virginia. But the Senate, backed by Gov. Wilder, killed that one. As it stands, the House budget contains a meager $35 million to address the school-disparity issue.

The state thus risks inviting litigation it can ill afford, over an issue that shouldn't have to be taken to court in the first place. Beyond the immediate threat of a lawsuit lies the more important question of what priority Virginia places on the education of her children.

For an answer, look to what the budget conferees produce tonight.

by CNB