The Folly of Unfunded Mandates.

As long as there have been governments, whether democratically chosen or unilaterally imposed, critics have taken potshots at the mandates these governments impose.

In feudal times, you had no choice but to turn over a portion of your crop or your earnings to the lord of the realm. As time went on, he insisted on the fulfillment of certain duties at the serfs' own time and expense.

In modern times, too, we rail against unfunded mandates imposed by state and federal legislatures.

We know that performing a required inspection or service will cost time and money, whether or not funds have been set aside in local school budgets for these costs. And lawmakers love to prove they've acted during their term of office, so they typically do something that costs penny-pinching federal or state government nothing but sends shock waves of budget implications to local governments, especially schools.

A Heavy Burden

The most onerous unfunded mandate to spring forth from Washington in recent years was the Asbestos Hazard Emergency Response Act, which President Reagan signed into law on Oct. 22, 1986.

This legislation, which may have appeared innocuous to Congress and the Reagan administration, forced local school districts to become instant experts in health risk assessment, asbestos in all its various forms. School leaders were forced to make determinations--in the face of concerned parents--that ended up costing millions of dollars to remove asbestos material that we subsequently learned could have been left in place with no harm to students or employees.

When the bill began moving in Congress, AASA, joined by the National School Boards Association, tried to make congressional staffers attach funding to what we viewed as an extremely expensive mandate. The most they would promise was a tiny, revolving-door loan program for extremely needy districts.

Eight years and billions of local dollars later, we find scientists questioning whether most of the asbestos removed from schools even should have been touched. That was valuable school money poured down the drain to satisfy Washington egos out of touch with local reality.

Pitiful Support

Another unfunded mandate over which we have been droning for years, to little avail, is the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or Public Law 94-142. Passed by Congress as the Education for All Handicapped Education Act of 1975, IDEA (as it is now known), established a funding formula that promised the federal government would reimburse local school districts for up to 40 percent of the average per-pupil amount spent on disabled students.

Unfortunately, since law mandates the service but not the funds to back up that service, Congress and successive presidents have allotted no more than 12 percent of the average perpupil expenditure at the apex of funding for IDEA in 1979. Today, IDEA funding is a pitiful eight percent of average per pupil expenditure, and any growth over the foreseeable future would appear to be at inflation levels, at best.

The Wall Street Journal pointed out last May, "Unfunded mandates mushroomed during the 1980s, as Congress ran out of money, but not enthusiasm for passing regulations." That's about half-true. It was Congress, together with the signature pens of Presidents Reagan and Bush, that pushed the mandates on local governments and chose to spend huge, deficit-creating piles of funds on military programs and interest on the cumulative federal debt.

Furthermore, the Department of Education tried last May to rewrite the Carl Perkins Vocational Education Act regulations, bypassing congressional and negotiated rulemaking approval, which would have opened the process to more affected groups. AASA maintained no such rulemaking should occur until 1996 when the Perkins Act will be up for renewal. Otherwise, the department can change procedures, willy-nilly, in the middle of a school's program year.

Nearly every level of government is pushing for "no money, no mandate" legislation, as the mid-term congressional elections draw near. Elected local officials are tired of taking it on the chin from Washington and then being expected to make money flow somehow to meet a new legal challenge.

Educators don't want children to study in unsafe environments, nor do they want to return to the days when children with disabilities were confined to state institutions. Still we need to find some way to make all elected representatives in Washington understand the far-reaching effects of their decisions. They need to know school leaders cannot make good things happen without adequate funds to back up the legislation.