Bill signed into law by governor
A spokesman for the Kansas City, Kan., Public Schools said a bill signed into law this week by Gov. Sam Brownback doesn’t change the amount of money it will receive.
David Smith, chief of staff for the Kansas City, Kan., Public Schools, said it was odd that it doesn’t change the amount of money, given that the bill was supposed to be a response to a court ruling to address the question of equity.
“But if you look at what the bill did, it didn’t do anything to address the question of equity,” Smith said.
Under the bill, the school district is expected to receive about the same as it did last year under the block grant, according to the school district. And this school year (from last year’s school finance bill), the district had to have four furlough days in the school calendar, including one that will occur April 22 and two more in June, Smith said.
“We have another year of the same amount of money, and as you can imagine costs will continue to go up,” he said.
While conservatives have said the funding for schools continues to increase during the past several years, the school district does not agree, because the figures used for comparison now count pension funding and the 20-mill local tax contribution that was not counted in the previous figures, he said.
The next step, Smith said, is in the courts. The Kansas City, Kan., Public Schools is one of four districts challenging school finance in the courts. He said he expects there will be a hearing to determine whether this school finance bill is equitable.
Gov. Brownback’s statement: “The Legislature has acted to keep Kansas schools open and I agree with its choice. I have signed Senate Substitute for House Bill 2655 because I want to keep our schools open and ensure our students continue to have access to a quality education. I would remind those who criticized this bill as a ‘product of politics,’ that it is indeed the job of the Legislature to address these issues. The Legislature consists of 165 elected representatives of the people. I do not take their judgment lightly. This bill is the result of a delicate legislative compromise – one that I respectfully endorse and that the court should review with appropriate deference.”
“This bill adopts the capital outlay equalization formula previously approved by the court itself. It includes a ‘hold harmless’ provision so that no school district will see a reduction from its current funding level.”
The governor’s full statement on signing the school finance bill is at this website: http://governor.ks.gov/docs/default-source/documents/april-2016-hb-2655-signing-statement.pdf?sfvrsn=4.
House Democratic Leader Tom Burroughs issued this statement: “Time and again, the Republican majority in the Kansas Legislature has refused to fulfill their constitutional responsibility to fund public schools. Instead, they blame others, mislead the public, and shortchange our children. The solution is simple: revert to the old formula and adequately fund it.”
Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt today filed the legislative response to the Kansas Supreme Court’s equity ruling earlier this year in Gannon v. Kansas.
Schmidt, on behalf of the state, officially transmitted to the Supreme Court Senate Substitute for House Bill 2655, which is the Legislature’s response to the Supreme Court’s ruling in February that the distribution of school funds was unconstitutionally inequitable. Gov. Sam Brownback signed the bill into law this week.
Because the court directed the Legislature to show how it analyzed and considered the Constitution’s requirements when crafting this bill, Schmidt also filed with the court the legislative history of the bill, except the legislative committee minutes, which will be filed after they are adopted and approved in official form.
Schmidt requested that the Supreme Court expedite its review of the bill because of the court’s threat to close public schools July 1 if the constitutional defects identified in the law are not remedied.
“There is clearly no need to order the schools to close, and we are asking the court to act quickly so that worry can be eliminated as soon as possible for educators, parents and schoolchildren throughout our state,” Schmidt said.