Month: May 2015

The Kansas City, Kan., Public Schools announced significant budget cuts today, including some layoffs and furlough days.

The district is trying to manage about $6.2 million in both budget cuts and increased costs, said David Smith, chief of staff for the district.

The cuts for the 2015-2016 school year are in response to reductions in state funding and increases in certain fixed costs, including health insurance, according to district information.

“We are in a very difficult position with our budget,” said Chief Financial Officer Kelli Mather in a news release, “and we are at a point where we have to act in order to be ready for the next school year. These cuts will create real pain, but we have worked hard to make them in a way that will still allow us to reach our goal of graduating each student prepared for college and careers.”

The cuts will include the elimination of the position of chief of human resources, and the elimination of about 30 positions of assessment manager, according to the district. The assessment managers were managing standardized testing at the individual schools and interpreting results to drive improvement. The work the assessment managers were doing freed time for principals and teachers to spend more time on instruction.

“It is important for staff and the community to know that, when cuts have to be made, they start at the top,” said Superintendent Cynthia Lane, in a news release, citing the human resources position on the leadership team that was cut. “We have cut more than $50 million in the past seven years, and there is no longer any fat left to be cut. We are forced to make cuts to things that really matter to our work.”

According to the district, additional cuts will include four furlough days for all year-round employees, along with a reduction in the number of contract days for certain staff, including teacher leaders. Non- personnel related cuts include a reduction of $900,000 in funding for alternative services, a 10 percent cut to all school and department budgets, a reduction of $350,000 in textbook purchases, and reduced spending on technology, transportation, professional development, supplies and summer school, among other things.

Besides a $2.2 million increase in health insurance costs, the district also faces costs to upgrade its technology infrastructure.

“The state is failing in its constitutional obligation to provide a suitable education for all students,” Lane said. “The decisions being made in Topeka will impact the lives of children in Kansas for generations to come. I pray that legislators will decide to do the right thing, and provide sufficient support for public schools across the state of Kansas.”

Across Kansas, most school districts are receiving less funding this year from the state, resulting in school budget cuts, Smith said. The Kansas Legislature this year made block grants to all districts, based on the amount of funding the districts received last year. However, the Kansas City, Kan., district will not receive any additional funding for new students, and every year, the district averages about 500 new students, amounting to a loss of about $1.7 million in state aid, district officials said.

“We tried to have the least impact upon schools and kids,” Smith said, “That’s always our goal. It’s getting harder and harder to do that.” The cuts are now at the point where they will affect children, he believes.

Not receiving funding for additional teachers affects the district’s day-to-day classroom education. The district, growing every year by about 500 students, should be adding around 22 teachers every year. When it doesn’t receive additional funding for the teachers, then the district is forced to cut something else to bring in teachers, or the student-teacher ratio is affected, he said.

The district is trying to keep its promises for the Diploma-Plus program, which helps students attend and get credit for college classes while still in high school. Either funds have to be taken from some other program, or the district can’t give the kids what has been promised them, which is not a good choice, he said.

Smith said the previous school funding formula, which is not being used this year, had a direct relationship between costs to educate students and how schools were funded and was used as a model for other states. Smith said the block grant that is being used now “makes no sense to me, and I think they should go back to the previous formula, absolutely. The question becomes, are they going to be willing to fund the formula?”

For several years, the Kansas City, Kan., school district, as part of a group of districts, has been challenging the amounts provided by the state of Kansas to the school districts. The districts have asked the courts to void the block grant bill, declare it unconstitutional and go back to the previous formula. That was heard before a three-judge panel in Shawnee County District Court, and the district is waiting for a response. The district’s school finance case, as part of a group of districts, centered on two issues, equity and adequacy of school funding, and the equity portion was solved last spring when the Legislature put money into the school finance formula. The school district sees the block grants as going back on the court’s school finance equity decision, which is why the district asked to reopen the case, according to Smith. The other issue, adequacy of funding, was not decided yet and was expected to be taken up by the Kansas Supreme Court, possibly in the fall or later.

Smith said raising property taxes was not an option for the district this year, as part of the block grant legislation prevented the district from raising property taxes. Last year, the district reduced property taxes when it received additional money from the state, he said.

About the state Legislature, Smith said, “My hope is that they will find a way to do what is right not just for children in KCK, but for children across the state of Kansas.”