{"id":13822,"date":"2016-01-10T09:03:36","date_gmt":"2016-01-10T17:03:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/alaska-supreme-court-upholds-local-school-contribution\/"},"modified":"2016-01-10T09:03:36","modified_gmt":"2016-01-10T17:03:36","slug":"alaska-supreme-court-upholds-local-school-contribution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/alaska-supreme-court-upholds-local-school-contribution\/","title":{"rendered":"Alaska Supreme Court upholds local school contribution"},"content":{"rendered":"

JUNEAU \u2014<\/strong> The Alaska Supreme Court on Friday upheld as constitutional a state requirement that local governments help pay for education, reversing a lower court decision.<\/p>\n

The ruling came in a case filed against the state by the Ketchikan Gateway Borough.<\/p>\n

In 2014, a state court judge ruled in the borough\u2019s favor in finding that a required local contribution for schools violates a constitutional provision that says that no state tax or license proceeds will be earmarked for any special purpose. An exception to that includes royalty proceeds put toward the Alaska Permanent Fund.<\/p>\n

But the supreme court, in a decision released Friday, said the required local contribution is not a state tax or license within the meaning of the dedicated funds clause of the constitution and does not violate that clause.<\/p>\n

State Department of Law spokeswoman Cori Mills said in a statement that the high court\u2019s opinion \u201crespects the legislature\u2019s decision to promote local-state cooperation in crafting and implementing the State\u2019s education system.\u201d<\/p>\n

A message seeking comment was left for the manager of the Ketchikan Gateway Borough.<\/p>\n

The opinion, written by Justice Joel Bolger, states that the minutes of the constitutional convention and historical context of those proceedings suggest delegates intended that local communities and the state would share responsibility for local schools. Over time, while the details of the program have changed, \u201cthe Legislature has never relieved local communities of their longstanding obligation to support local public schools,\u201d the opinion states.<\/p>\n

Bolger wrote the today\u2019s program for funding for local public schools \u201cfalls squarely within the type of state-local cooperative programs the delegates sought to exempt from the constitutional prohibition on dedicated funds.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chief Justice Craig Stowers and Justice Daniel Winfree concurred in the decision but expressed concerns.<\/p>\n

Winfree wrote that laws are presumed to be constitutional and parties challenging a law\u2019s constitutionality have the burden of persuasion, with doubts resolved in favor of constitutionality. While he has \u201cconsiderable doubt\u201d about the constitutionality of the required local contribution, he said he cannot conclude that the presumption has been overcome in this case. He said he therefore agrees with vacating the lower court decision that the contribution is an unconstitutional dedicated tax.<\/p>\n

But, he wrote, he does not rule out an ultimate conclusion that the required local contribution is unconstitutional, as a dedicated tax or otherwise, and does not join the court\u2019s analysis or decision on that point.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn my view the question cannot be answered definitively without a full interpretation and understanding of the Alaska Constitution\u2019s public schools clause, which, apparently for strategic reasons, the parties did not confront,\u201d Winfree wrote.<\/p>\n

The public school clause states in part that the Legislature shall by general law establish and maintain a system of public schools open to all children of the state.<\/p>\n

Winfree wrote that he agreed with the court\u2019s analysis in affirming the lower court\u2019s secondary decision that the required contribution does not violate the appropriations clause or the governor\u2019s veto clause of the Alaska Constitution.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

JUNEAU \u2014 The Alaska Supreme Court on Friday upheld as constitutional a state requirement that local governments help pay for education, reversing a lower court decision. The ruling came in a case filed against the state by the Ketchikan Gateway Borough. In 2014, a state court judge ruled in the borough\u2019s favor in finding that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[230],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-13822","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13822","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13822"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13822\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13822"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=13822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}