Ala. Judge Asked To Extend Deadline for Finance Reforms

By Millicent Lawton

Alabama lawmakers will not try again to meet a Sept. 30 deadline to enact court-ordered education-finance reforms. Now, a state judge must decide whether to extend the deadline, and whether to approve a plan to distribute state aid for the upcoming school year that takes only small steps toward equity.

At a July 22 hearing, lawyers for the state asked Montgomery County Circuit Judge Eugene W. Reese to give lawmakers more time. They told the judge they were optimistic that next year's legislative session would yield changes.

But lawyers for the plaintiffs in the equity-funding lawsuit objected and expressed skepticism that such...