ALASKA

Constitutional Clause/Language
“The legislature shall by general law establish and maintain a system of public schools open to all children of the State.”
Alaska Const. art. VII, s 1.

Major Court Decision: Matanuska-Susitna Borough School Dist. v. State, 931 P.2d 391

Result: Financing System Upheld

Summary:  Some school districts pay more in school taxes than others, and they receive less state aid that others.  They challenge this funding system as a violation of state equal protection.  The court rejects their claim, writing that “[b]orough and districts are not entitled to equal protection rights.” Id. at 395.

Key Quotes:

“Because the individual plaintiffs have failed to arguably show that disparities in the local contribution required of districts translate into disparities in the educational opportunities available to students, their education-based equal protection challenge to AS 14.17.025(a) was properly dismissed.”  Id. at 399.

“In order to meet its goal of ensuring equitable educational opportunity across the state, the legislature had to find some means of accommodating the fact that REAAs cannot raise taxes on their own. The means it chose may not have been those most protective of taxing equality, but they do bear a substantial relationship to the goals of the legislation. The classifications relied upon meet the minimal requirement that they ‘rest upon some ground of difference having a fair and substantial relation to the object of the legislation.’”  Id. at 400.

“We hold that any disparate impact on taxpayers in four mill districts that results from the thirty-five percent cap in AS 14.17.025(a) does not rise to the level of an equal protection violation.”  Id. at 401.