by Mary Rupert
House Minority Leader Tom Burroughs, D-33rd Dist., today said that a school finance bill that passed Friday night in the Kansas Legislature was a “tremendous victory” for public education.
Because it faced a deadline of June 30 from the Kansas courts to fix school finance, the Legislature went into a special session June 23 and 24 before coming up with the latest bill. The bill that passed 116-6 in the House and 38-1 in the Senate will add $38 million to be distributed to the state’s poorer school districts. The Kansas City, Kan., Public Schools are slated to receive about $2.6 million more in funding.
A lawsuit filed by the Kansas City, Kan., Public Schools and three other school districts in the state maintained that the state’s funding of school districts was not equitable and was not adequate. The action taken last night addresses the equity portion of the lawsuit – equal distribution among the districts – while the courts are expected to hand down a further ruling on whether it is adequate – whether enough money is being spent to educate pupils – sometime in the next year.
Rep. Burroughs said the attorneys for the school districts that filed suit have agreed they can accept this decision on the equity portion, and will ask that the court accept the agreement. Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt issued a statement that after the governor signs it into law, Schmidt would present it to the court next week, and he is optimistic it will end the current phase of litigation, keeping the schools open.
Rep. Burroughs pointed out that the courts never threatened to close the schools – they just stated that the law had to be fixed by June 30 or funding would be stopped then.
Rep. Burroughs said that Kansas City, Kan., Superintendent Cynthia Lane made a big impression in her statements to legislators.
“Her voice resonated quite well with the legislators and those within the educational community,” he said.
While much was said in advance of the Friday vote about the power of Johnson County legislators in controlling the Kansas Legislature’s actions, Rep. Valdenia Winn, D-34th Dist., said the way it worked out was that the Johnson County delegation was split between moderates, conservatives and arch-conservatives. The Wyandotte County delegation was solidly in support of the equity fix.
Funding for the school finance fix
“I’m really proud of the fact that Democrats stepped out early on with an education plan,” Rep. Burroughs said. Democrats called for a special session, then advanced an outline of a way education could be funded, he said. Then the two sides were able to come together for a plan that met the court’s mandate.
Three plans were presented in the special session, and all three had some elements that were contained in the Democrats’ proposal, he said. As discussions continued, more funding sources became apparent.
The legislation that was passed will take about $13 million from the Kansas Bioscience fund and put it in school funding.
Rep. Winn, a community college professor who is also a Kansas City, Kan., Public Schools board member, said the original plan presented in the special session would have taken an additional $23 million from the schools in order for it to be self-funded. There were substantial cuts in virtual aid and extra needs funding, she said.
Because it was taking education funds already in the districts’ budgets, she considered the first plan to be a ridiculous plan. There was a lot of pressure put on the school districts to accept it, but the votes weren’t there, with Democrats and moderates not in favor of it, she said.
“We advised our school districts that there are other sources out there,” Rep. Winn said. “We weren’t going to be bullied. … You couldn’t cut $23 million from the schools and repackage it as an equity fix. That wasn’t going to pass the Legislature and surely not pass the courts.”
The bill then was modified. The plan that was passed still has dollars that you can’t bank on, such as the sale of the bioscience authority, she said. The bioscience authority hasn’t been sold yet, and there are question marks about the figure it will sell for, but at least it didn’t take money from the schools as the original $23 million of the $38 million, she said. “So I voted for it,” she added.
The bill that passed still includes some money taken from virtual aid, which has been frozen at 2014 levels, but it is not the substantial cut that would have hit school districts in the original plan, she said.
The bill also would use funding from a tobacco settlement. Those funds currently were going toward the Children’s Initiative Fund, she said. Those funds had already been swept and were sitting in the general fund not being used, she said.
“I had a problem with that because that will impact early childhood education programs,” she said. She and some other legislators also did not like the proposed taking of Temporary Aid to Needy Families (TANF) funding to fix education equity, she said. The bill used TANF funding that had been dedicated to an educational pilot program for 4-year-olds, she said, and did not take general TANF funding.
Also Friday in the Legislature, a constitutional amendment failed that would have limited the Kansas Supreme Court’s authority on this subject.
Legislators expect the Kansas Supreme Court to accept the Friday night bill, as the plaintiffs’ attorneys have said the districts would accept it.
Is school funding in Kansas adequate?
The next step for the school finance issue is the second part of the school finance lawsuit.
Both Rep. Winn and Rep. Burroughs said they do not expect the court to accept the Legislature’s appropriations as adequate funding.
“That then is going to set us up for a replay of this crisis mentality,” Rep. Winn said.
Where will funding for the schools come from next year?
“With the revenue challenges due to the governor’s sale tax plan of 2012, that will be an issue that will have to be addressed by the next legislative body,” Rep. Burroughs said.
He said he hopes more pro-education legislators are elected next year and will work in a bipartisan fashion to help find a solution to the revenue shortfall and put Kansas back on the path to prosperity.
In 2005-2006, a post-audit study was done of what it cost to provide an adequate education, Rep. Winn said. There was a three-year phase-in period, and the courts accepted it then, she said.
“With the current individuals in the Legislature, we’ll have this same argument, and individual stonewalling, and they’ll say we have enough money, they can do what they want,” she said.
“But it’s not going to fly,” Rep. Winn said. “We’re going to have another crisis when the courts rule that we’re not adequately funding. This is 2016. What does it cost for a college and career-ready student when he graduates? We may need another study.”
She said there is a clear need for the governor to call the Education Committee and give them a clear message not to play politics, but to sit down and work on a school finance formula, and start researching what is necessary. That way, when the Legislature reconvenes, it would be informed and come in with knowledge, data and evidence, she said.
But she believes many of the legislators are anti-public education. When people explained their votes last night, some of them expressed the belief that schools have enough money and did not need the money.
Rep. Winn also sees a need for Wyandotte and Johnson county legislators and superintendents to sit down and work out some of the gaps in their communications.
“They all need to work together, collectively, for the good of education of this region,” she said.
The school finance bill is online at http://www.kslegislature.org/li/b2015_16measures/documents/hb2001_02_0000.pdf.
Some of the effects of the school finance bill on districts are online at http://www.ksde.org/Agency/Fiscal-and-Administrative-Services/School-Finance/Whats-New.