The state Friday asked a judge to reject Montana schools’ latest legal challenge on school funding, arguing the issue is moot because millions of new state dollars have been approved for schools since 2004.

The Legislature and Gov. Brian Schweitzer OK’d an additional $420 million for schools and school-related items during the past three years, improving and changing a system that was declared unconstitutional in 2004, the state said.

If schools think the system is still unconstitutional, they must file an entirely new lawsuit and prove new facts — rather than force the state to come before District Judge Jeffrey Sherlock of Helena and show it has complied with his 2004 order, a lawyer for the state said.

“Now that there is new law governing school funding, that new law must be tested on its own merits and deserves the same presumption of constitutionality enjoyed by any other legislative enactment,” wrote Assistant Attorney General Anthony Johnstone.

Johnstone is responding to the Feb. 4 action by a coalition of school groups, who say the state still has failed to comply with Sherlock’s April 2004 ruling that said the state had failed to adequately fund public schools in Montana.

The Montana Supreme Court upheld Sherlock’s ruling in March 2005.

The coalition of school groups says scores of public schools are facing budget shortfalls this fall, can’t meet accreditation standards and are having trouble recruiting teachers — the same problems noted in Sherlock’s 2004 ruling.

The school groups asked Sherlock to order a hearing, at which the state would be required to show how it’s complied with his order.

If the judge finds the state has not complied, he should order some “injunctive relief,” the schools said, although they didn’t specify what the relief would be.

School officials in many areas of the state also have been urging Gov. Schweitzer and legislative leaders to call a special session of the Legislature to approve more state money for schools this coming year.

Schweitzer and legislative leaders have rejected this request, saying schools must get by on their current funding.

Johnstone, in a 15-page brief filed with Sherlock on Friday, said there should be no hearing on whether the state has complied.

The schools’ latest action is challenging the constitutionality of a newly-enacted system, and therefore schools must file a new lawsuit to prove their case, he said.

The system challenged by the schools’ original lawsuit in 2003 has been replaced by action and funding changes approved by the 2005 and 2007 Legislature, and has “progressed beyond the ‘long-standing structural and substantive deficiencies” alleged in that lawsuit, Johnstone wrote.

The changes approved in 2005 and 2007 include $175 million to bolster the Teachers Retirement System, $40 million in a new “per-educator” payment to schools, nearly $80 million of one-time funds for energy bills, building maintenance and other programs, and another $83 million of additional on-going basic state aid for schools.

Johnstone also said there is “no reason to doubt that the 2009 Legislature and its successors will continue to improve the school-funding system according to the Supreme Court’s ruling and new educational and economic factors as they arise.”

The schools are trying to “shoehorn new claims against a new law based on new facts into a hearing arising under their old lawsuit,” without the full process required by a civil lawsuit, Johnstone added.

Some of those claims — such as budget problems in just 20 percent of Montana’s school districts — also seem to be issues of funding equality, which was not part of the subject of the Supreme Court opinion, he added.

The schools have several weeks to file a reply to Johnstone, after which Sherlock is expected to hold a scheduling conference on how to handle the case.