No one paid much attention in 1980 when Zuni Pueblo established the first Indian-controlled independent public school district in the nation, about 150 miles west of Albuquerque.

Eighteen years later, all eyes focused on the Zuni Public School District when it challenged the state of New Mexico's funding system for public school capital improvements in district court. The move forced the Legislature to adopt a more equitable process for statewide school financing.

Things had been going well since 1974, when the Legislature developed an equalized formula for funding school operating expenses, such as teacher salaries, which was not dependent on local property taxes. This new equalization funding formula was creative. It was fair.

But it did not address the problem, largely ignored at the time, of the inherent inequality of providing the capital needed for bricks and mortar by school districts through the local property tax base.

After all, some school districts could raise more money for school construction and building improvements simply because the high level of personal income in their community translated into high property tax revenues for the school district.

Then along came Zuni, with virtually no personal property tax base whatsoever because the land within the pueblo is either owned by the American Indians or held in trust by the federal government and cannot be taxed by the state.

Since the end of the 19th century, America has traditionally considered its schools to be local institutions, largely funded through property taxes. That policy changed in New Mexico in 1998 when the crumbling schools in the Zuni district and the state of New Mexico collided head-on over this funding discrepancy in the "Zuni lawsuit."

It didn't take long for state District Judge Joseph Rich of the 11th Judicial District to find the state's method of funding capital improvements for public schools to be unconstitutional. In May 2002, Rich appointed former New Mexico Supreme Court Justice Dan McKinnon as "special master" in the capital outlay lawsuit.

Justice McKinnon, now deceased, was charged with creating a special master's report, which currently provides the legal guidelines for a more equitable capital funding system and calls for a periodic review at the court's discretion of the new capital funding adequacy standards for public schools.

On March 20, the court exercised its authority and convened a status conference on the Zuni lawsuit in Gallup, partially in response to the governor's and Legislature's desire to directly allocate public school capital dollars to high-growth areas of the state, such as Albuquerque's West Side.

The plaintiffs in the Zuni lawsuit succeeded in convincing Rich to re-open the lawsuit and establish a timeline for a full evidentiary hearing later this fall that may cast new light on the constitutionality of how the Legislature continues to provide capital funding to public schools.

Complicating the situation even more is the announcement by Rich that he plans to retire in the near future.

Areas of Albuquerque are facing student overcrowding and school facility shortages like never before, and struggle to accommodate the education needs of young families. It would seem simple enough for the state to provide financial relief with no strings attached to high-growth school districts that could desperately use a substantial injection of money to build those badly needed new schools. But that would raise constitutional flags and fly in the face of Zuni.

Far from being an irrelevant, never-ending dispute reminiscent of Dickens' Pickwick Papers, the Zuni lawsuit hangs like a war cloud over the Albuquerque Public School District.