Democrat leaders say there is little hope of a compromise with Republicans on a bill that would help satisfy a federal court order that the state increase spending on English language learner students by the end of the legislative session.

“I’d say there’s zero chance,” House Assistant Minority Leader Linda Lopez said May 12. “It appears there are a lot of things that are left to get worked out and we’re not sure that’s going to happen.”

The bill would help the state resolve issues coming from a 2000 court ruling in the Flores v. Arizona case.

The bill is the final piece of the fiscal year 2006 state budget. The rest of the budget package was approved May 6 and is waiting to be sent to Governor Napolitano, who has said she will sign the package only if Democrats support the Flores bill.

Republican leaders have indicated they may press forward with a Flores bill of their own, a move that could possibly jeopardize other portions of the budget. At press time May 12, further details were not available.

Ms. Lopez said in a May 12 caucus that Republican and Democrat leaders have been meeting on Flores since May 9, though to no avail. In the following days, Democrats made four counterproposals to the strike-everything amendment proposed to H2023, she said, while Republicans made no attempt to be conciliatory.

“When we left our meeting [with Republicans May 12], there were some of us who voiced grave concerns that we have continued to negotiate in good faith and we have not seen any compromise from them,” she said.

Ms. Lopez said she was “offended” that her Republican counterparts have not made any attempt to negotiate.

Rep. Tom Boone, R-4, one of the Republicans involved in the leadership meetings, would not comment on specifics of the discussions.

The Republican plan would create a grant system for school districts to receive funding for English language learner, or ELL, students. It would also eliminate Group B weights currently in the K-12 funding formula that provide districts additional state funding per ELL student.

The fourth and final Democrat proposal, Ms. Lopez said, would eliminate the Group B weights but create an English Language Acquisition Program (E-LAP) and set incremental funding increases per ELL student of $515 per student in 2006 and $670 per student in 2007 for a cost of $27.7 million and $58.7 million, respectively.

The Democrat proposal also would establish an E-LAP Task Force that would be charged with developing the new incremental cost per student starting in 2008. That cost increase would have to be approved by the state Board of Education.

The task force would also develop teaching models that ensure English language acquisition, which would be submitted to the Board of Education for approval. School districts would then be required to implement one of the teaching models to receive E-LAP funding.

Senate Minority Leader Linda Aguirre said the compromise was as far as the Democrats were willing to go for fear the courts would find the plan unacceptable.

“We really can’t go any farther without jeopardizing it,” she said.

Democrat caucuses in both the House and Senate agreed to stand firm on the fourth proposal and said they would not make any more compromises.

Tim Hogan, director of the Arizona Center for Law in the Public Interest and the lawyer who sued the state in Flores, said he is supportive of the Democrat compromise, though it doesn’t go as far as he would like.

“It doesn’t totally resolve the problems,” he said, “but I’m trying to be reasonable about this. Going back to court is never a productive answer.”

The federal court has said that Arizona must comply with the court order by the end of the session or risk losing federal funding for state programs. —