If you mandate it, why not fund it?

As I was doing my morning reading last week, I did a quick check of my Facebook page to discover a post by a friend and member of a local school board. It linked to a KMA story about the Iowa Senate passing a school radon bill. My friend’s comment noted without the funding, the bill wasn’t much help to schools.

In other words, it’s just another “unfunded mandate.”

From my years tracking state education legislation, I can say this follows the usual pattern of picking issues and pushing through one-size-fits-all fixes. These fixes often turn into political theater, giving legislators issues on which to run their next campaign. But they create headaches for local level officials charged with implementation because they are passed without the funding that would make them work.

In this case, without additional funding to help schools pay for installation of any needed radon mitigation system, requiring it becomes a burden more likely to erode a district’s education program by taking money away from kids’ learning or other district needs. Currently, that’s how the legislation reads.

And such legislation distracts from the real responsibility of legislators to tax and spend for the common good. Their job, first and foremost, is to provide the means (money) for public services, not the details of their operation.

As one southwest Iowa legislator noted when I made a visit to the Capitol in February, from the beginning of his legislative career, he specialized, serving on agricultural and human service committees. Too many issues come before the legislature for him to be an expert in all, he said.

Which leads me to ask why legislators are passing legislation at this level of detail, instead of appropriating adequate education funds to allow local officials to do the job of providing safe schools? Ironically, this same legislator registered a similar complaint about working with the federal government on water quality standards in Iowa.

But getting back to radon, it is very definitely a public health issue, and we want to protect our children. If it’s a priority, then it’s the legislature’s job to appropriate the funds to pay for this public safety law. However, without the funding, it’s simply marketing for the next election.

If legislators are serious about public needs, they need to be willing to fund them. That’s why Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution gives Congress the power to tax. And our state constitution states: “Government is instituted for the protection, security, and benefit of the people.” No government can perform these duties without funds.

Likewise, schools can’t fix a radon problem without funds.

So if state legislators really want to protect our schools from radon, they need to provide the funds for it. Either attach appropriations to the radon bill or increase allowable growth to cover it instead of asking schools to cut already tight budgets or local property taxpayers to pick up the bill.