School-finance hearings didn’t go well for state

Based on how two days of district court hearings went last week, state lawmakers had better brace themselves for another school-finance ruling going against them. The state’s sole witness, Deputy Education Commissioner Dale Dennis, undermined its claim that school districts would be getting more money under the new block-grant funding system. Not counting payments to the state pension system, not a single district would receive more funding than it would have received under the previous system, Dennis said. Statewide, districts would receive about $53 million less, he said. The three-judge panel already has ruled that school funding is inadequate. – Phillip Brownlee

This story was originally published May 8, 2015 at 7:07 PM.