Today’s school finance court decision was good news for the Kansas City, Kan., Public School district.
The Shawnee County District Court, in a 139-page decision, made a ruling today as it had in the past that largely supported the idea that funding was not adequate for public school districts.
“As we have analyzed, it is inadequate from any rational perspective of the evidence presented or proffered to us,” the court stated in today’s decision.
David Smith, spokesman for the school district, said the district is pleased that once again the court has affirmed that there is a constitutional directive to fund schools adequately.
He said he anticipated that this decision today would be appealed to the Kansas Supreme Court, and that it would be another year or so before the Supreme Court makes a final decision.
Smith said he does not think the decision today will change anything in the current school year, as the decision will likely be under appeal.
“This is a great ruling for Kansas kids,” said attorney John Robb, with Schools for Fair Funding, which challenged the state. “It reaffirms that the Constitution has certain guarantees and that entitlement to an adequate education is one of them. The ruling today found that Kansas kids are not getting what the Constitution says is due.”
While the ruling is very good for kids, it is not the final word, Robb said.
“It would be premature to take action until we hear the final word from the Supreme Court after the appeal,” he said.
Robb stated, to sum up, that today’s opinion found the finance formula is fine, it just needs to be funded. A new formula is not needed, and they just need to fund the formula they have.
Second, he stated the court said the current local option budget system is unconstitutional in that it is voluntary. The state attempted to lay off its responsibility to fund the school to local taxpayers, and the court found this to be wrong, he said. State mandatory obligations cannot be delegated to voluntary local sources of revenue, he stated. The LOB system must be revamped so that all kids are guaranteed the resources necessary to receive an adequate education. This duty cannot be voluntary at the local level, he said.
Redoing the school finance formula has been one of the topics expected to be under discussion in the Kansas Legislature when it reconvenes in January.
Today, Gov. Sam Brownback released a statement on the decision, adding that he was still studying the decision: “I continue to believe that restructuring the school funding formula and implementing education policy reforms is critical not only to getting more money into our classrooms but also improving student achievement. I will be working with legislative leadership to address the best path forward.”
Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt released this statement: “We are disappointed by today’s ruling by the panel, which in areas seems in tension with the Kansas Supreme Court’s guidance. We are assessing the opinion and evaluating all of our options.”
The court stated in its decision today: “K-12 school funding in Kansas is still proceeding by political choice to use otherwise available state financial resources elsewhere or not at all or to shield above a certain level important local property tax resources from statewide taxation, both to the harm of the Kansas K-12 school system and in the face of the constitutional imperative of Art. 6, Sect. 6 (b).”
In this school finance case, Gannon vs. state of Kansas, the district court previously made a ruling that was appealed to the state Supreme Court. The court ruled that the state did not equitably fund education, and that the students in poorer districts did not have the same educational resources as other public school districts that were well-off, Smith said.
In March the Supreme Court sent the case back to the district court and at the time, there were two issues to be resolved, equity and adequacy, he said.
Since then, the state Legislature provided $130 million in more funding last spring, adding funds and local option budget equalization. The Legislature also reduced some funding for at-risk students.
The adequacy question was to be determined by the district court, to decide whether funding was adequate to meet constitutional obligations. The court came down clearly on the side that funding was not adequate currently, according to Smith.
While the court ruled that the school finance formula was constitutional, the court also said the underfunding of schools was unconstitutional, according to Robb.
The court said in its decision that it was not setting exact state aid figures per pupil, but was saying that parameters needed to be set. The decision discussed different figures, including a base state aid per pupil of $4,433 in 2008, that was later reduced to $3,838. Some expert opinions were cited that it needed to be in the area of $4,492, which would then be adjusted for inflation.
Schools for Fair Funding, whose members included about 50 school districts, including Kansas City, Kan., Public Schools, Turner Public Schools and the Wichita schools, was backing the challenge to the Kansas Legislature’s funding reductions to the public schools during the past several years.
Today’s decision also stated:
“We find that as the financing system now stands, one cannot classify the school financing structure as reliably constitutionally sound because the legislature has tied its constitutional duty to the unenforceable precept, yet parochial illusion, of local control and local funding choices as one linchpin for the assurance of constitutionally adequate funding. However, that delegation of constitutional duty to discretionary choice is both unlawful under Art. 6, § 6(b) and substantially threatens the common good of all Kansas children wherever they may reside in Kansas.
“Further, current dollar funding inadequacy has been established beyond any doubt notwithstanding the use of those LOB resources. As our All USDs chart in Appendix A evidences, a bottom range of reasonableness is reflected to be somewhere near $4654 per pupil, but only when that BSAPP is coupled with increases in weightings, the LOB is intended to be consumed substantially in full to meet the Rose factors, and a fail-safe exists that would kick in that would backstop any shortfall. If that approach is chosen, then substantially all choice of expenditure purpose for an LOB has been surrendered to the State.”
The decision today was criticized by Dave Trabert, president of the Kansas Policy Institute, a free-market think tank in Wichita, who released a statement: “The judges essentially dusted off their original decision that was rejected by the Supreme Court and added some new legal jargon attempting to justify their original action in arriving at what is little more than a political decision.”
The court decision is online at http://www.shawneecourt.org/CivicAlerts.aspx?AID=87.
