Arizona schools are starving. This plan feeds them

Everyone who taps into an investment fund must answer the question:

Is it really wise to spend this money now, when I may end up needing it a whole lot more sometime later?

That is the question Arizonans likely will be answering in the fall, when they consider whether to support Gov. Doug Ducey's plan to use cash from state trust land sales to fund K-12 education.

According to a Joint Legislative Budget Committee staff analysis, the plan to bolster Arizona education spending by at least $1.72 billion over the next 10 years with trust-land investment revenues will cost the state about $1 billion in lost investment earnings.

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That is because the state won't earn an investment premium on the money it spends. Which, really, is what the choice to spend rather than re-invest is all about.

JLBC projects the plan would increase annual spending on K-12 by $344 million. That's the idea.

Arizona spending on K-12 is, infamously, at the bottom of the pile nationally. That is not a status quo we are much interested in maintaining, and Ducey's plan to use funds already dedicated to education is a prudent choice.

Ducey's proposal would increase the amount Arizona public education receives from the trust, from 2.5 percent currently to 10 percent for the first five years of the funding plan, and five percent thereafter. That would allow the trust's overall valuation to increase over the 10-year life of the funding plan, from 2017 to 2026. It simply wouldn't increase by as much as it would have if left untouched.

The matter will have to go before the Legislature to approve a ballot measure, then to voters. These things change, of course, but thus far the plan appears to have few real opponents. The debate appears to be between those state leaders, like Ducey, who believe this funding boost satisfies the need for more K-12 revenue, and those who believe it merely represents a good start.

Arizona is starving for education revenue. Which, in a nutshell, answers the question.

Public education in this state has never been as financially wobbly as it is now, and has been since the crushing effect of the Great Recession on Arizona's finances. Supporting education is what the fund is for. And lean times such as these are when it should be spent.

Ducey's plan protects the existing principle of the trust fund. That's a good bottom line.