5.23.00
Judge-Made Taxes

5.23.00
Scalia & Thomas: Leaders of the Court

5.22.00
Anarchy For Me, Not For Thee

5.19.00
Angelos Fails As A Relief Pitcher

5.19.00
The Smartest Little Boy in Class

5.18.00
Blaze Days At Los Alamos

5.18.00
90210: A Generation Duped

5.18.00
Peter Angelos In Foul Territory

5.18.00
Fourth Amendment Sneak Attack

5.16.00
Always a Rerun

5.16.00
Grabbing the Rail

5.16.00
Califonia's School Quackery

5/23/00 10:00 a.m.
Judge-Made Taxes
The state benches run amok.

By Thomas Gnau, reporter for the Middletown (Ohio) Journal

week ago, the Ohio Supreme Court directed lawmakers back to the blackboard, giving them 13 months to find a way to make the state's system of financing schools more "equitable." The culprit, according to four out of seven justices? Too heavy a reliance on property taxes, which creates funding disparities among different school districts.

So the Senate responded Tuesday by proposing a cut in property taxes. The next day, Gov. Bob Taft talked senators out of the idea. Instead, the Senate wants to cut estate taxes; and a good time was had by all.

Thus began the state's latest effort to make its Supreme Court happy. If this seems old hat, that's because it is. It's the second time in three years the Supreme Court has deemed the school-financing system unfair.

Of course, it's not just Ohio. Over the last decade, court orders have driven a search for funding "fairness" in Alabama, Mississippi, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Vermont, and Wyoming. Alan B. Handler, a retired New Jersey Supreme Court justice, recently recalled that school funding was an issue all 22 years he spent on the bench.

Handler must love retirement. Asked at a January luncheon in Newark if yet another plan would be acceptable to the court, Handler was very helpful.

"I'm not on the court anymore," he said.

No, but Judge Alice Robie Resnick surely is on Ohio's Supreme Court, and she ruled last week that the definition of a "thorough" funding system - the standard set by the state constitution - is one in which every school has "enough money." It's not, as Resnick slyly noted, a "static definition."

Chief Justice Thomas Moyer protested that it isn't a definition at all, writing: "The majority still has not clearly told the General Assembly what 'thorough and efficient' means or what 'overreliance' on property tax is."

Is there something about donning a black judicial robe that instills in one's heart a desire to fiddle with taxes? That fills one with unease unless legislators are bending over backward in a sweaty effort to satisfy not only judges but their constituents? New Hampshire's response to its Supreme Court's 1997 order has half of state spending on schools next year covered with a new property tax. There will be tax increases as well on cigarettes, real estate transfers, and business.

Wyoming sought the advice of two panels of teachers and school administrators in a scramble to satisfy a 1995 ruling.

But does it matter? Does it ever end? Irene Devin, chairwoman of the Wyoming Senate Education Committee, said recently that before the legislature could make a move, "We need to have the Supreme Court speak on the issues."

Speaking on the issues is what state Supreme Courts seem to enjoy doing in recent years. When Taft urged senators not to cut property taxes, he said the move would do little to reassure Ohio's own court.

"As we read Judge Resnick's decision, we think she took tax cuts off the table, and we decided we weren't going to risk it," a state senator said.

Probably a good move. When courts nudge taxes, they usually go in only one direction: up.

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