The Alaska Supreme Court announced Friday morning that it has ruled in favor of the State of Alaska in the Ketchikan Gateway Borough’s lawsuit challenging the state’s required local contribution for education.
Friday’s ruling partially reverses a lower-court decision that had ruled the state’s required local contribution violates the Constitution’s prohibition against dedicated funds or earmarks. The Supreme Court ruling also allows the Legislature to continue with the status-quo for education funding in the state.
There was no dissent offered to Friday’s opinion, which was written by Justice Joel Bolger. In it, he writes the court agrees with the state’s argument that the required local contribution is a longstanding cooperative program between the state and local governments.
Bolger writes that “the minutes of the constitutional convention and the historical context of those proceedings suggest that the delegates intended local communities and the State would share responsibility for their local schools.”
While concurring with the opinion, Chief Justice Craig Stowers and Justice Daniel Winfree wrote that the decision might not have favored the state if the borough had instead challenged the constitutionality of the required local contribution under the public schools clause, rather than the dedicated funds clause.
That clause says the state shall establish and maintain a public school system open to all children in Alaska.
Winfree is particularly critical of the required local contribution, and writes that he has “considerable doubt about the constitutionality of the statutorily required local contribution.”
But, he writes, when challenging a statute, the plaintiff has the burden of persuasion, and Winfree says the borough did not overcome that burden.
