Behind the scenes view of school finance bill passage, with Rep. Winn and Schools for Fair Funding
by Mary Rupert
A local education leader says it’s anyone’s guess if the $90 million school finance bill approved Thursday will receive the Kansas Supreme Court’s OK, but there will be a review of it.
With the Senate’s passage of a $90 million school finance bill on Thursday, the bill next goes to the governor’s desk, then it will be reviewed by the Kansas Supreme Court to see if it complies with the court’s order. Briefs are scheduled to be submitted April 15, with oral arguments to begin May 9.
While State Rep. Valdenia Winn, D-34th Dist., said she did not know what the courts would say about it, an attorney for Schools for Fair Funding said Friday he was confident that the courts would reject the legislative plan.
Rep. Winn, who served on the House Education Budget Committee as well as on the conference committee on the school finance bill, said she has mixed feelings about the school finance bill. A professor at Kansas City Kansas Community College, she is also the House assistant minority leader and the president of the Kansas City, Kansas, Board of Education. The KCK school district is one of the Schools for Fair Funding plaintiffs in the Gannon case, along with the Turner school district and more than 40 other school districts.
Her mixed feelings stem from the fact that District 500 is one of the plaintiffs in the Schools for Fair Funding case, she said, and also that the first year of funding is now in place at $90 million.
For the Kansas City, Kansas, school district, it means they can now plan their budget for 2019 and 2020, at a somewhat secure figure, Rep. Winn said. In some past years the school districts had to deal with uncertainty about how much money they would receive in the coming year. The $90 million statewide increase also means that the Kansas City, Kansas, district can continue its goal of hiring master’s level social workers for each school in the district, she said.
“I’m sure everyone wants to see litigation end, but we don’t determine that,” Rep. Winn said. “The court determines it.” It will be up to the court whether the legislation satisfies the court’s earlier ruling in the Gannon case, as it ruled that the state had to allocate additional funds for inflation. “At the end of the day, we have to wait for their decision.”
Legislation overcame obstacles
In the House, Rep. Winn said the legislation had to overcome many obstacles, including dealing with some legislators, including some conservatives who don’t want to give any additional funding at all to the schools, despite the court order.
“Perhaps they don’t fully support the direction that public education is going in,” she said. In order to overcome those obstacles, accountability provisions were added in the House, she said.
Those provisions include requiring school districts to provide performance audits, provide their unencumbered cash balances and other reporting requirements to the public, and post them on their web pages, she said. The bill also contained an extension of the dyslexia task force and an expansion of at-risk programs that are peer-reviewed, she added. She also said there was a sentiment among legislators that the school districts need to do additional promotion for the bullying hotline.
Last year, the Legislature added $100 million per year for the next five years for schools, but the courts ruled that figure needed to include more funding for inflation. Rep. Winn said there needs to be more clarity in the language of the current school finance legislation, as some people have interpreted it as meaning $90 million per year for the next four years, and others thought it would include another adjustment for inflation in years two through four.
She said Schools for Fair Funding originally supported this legislation, then withdrew its support because of different interpretations of the language of the bill.
Attempt to make deal with superintendents falls through
During remarks at a legislative forum last Saturday at the Main Kansas City, Kansas, Public Library, Rep. Winn said she thought it was inappropriate of Sen. Molly Baumgardner, R-Louisburg, who contacted school superintendents in an attempt to convince them to withdraw the lawsuit if this bill passed. Sen. Baumgardner led the conference committee on the school finance bill.
Rep. Winn said it was the school boards that have the authority to withdraw from the lawsuit, not the superintendents, and that she wasn’t asked about it.
“I would have welcomed that kind of communication with me,” Rep. Winn said Friday. Once the superintendents told the senator that they supported their legal counsel and would rely on the court’s decision, the conversation stopped, she added.
“I never approached the Senate members of the conference committee because there was no need to discuss anything that never went any place,” Rep. Winn said. “But I thought it was inappropriate.”
‘It’s funny math’ – Schools for Fair Funding
“I think Schools for Fair Funding and the schools are really appreciative of what the Legislature has done, and we’re going to see what the court says now,” said John Robb, an attorney for Schools for Fair Funding, on Friday.
“That being said, we don’t think that the court’s going to sign off on it, because the court’s instructions were pretty clear. Just add inflation to education spending,” he said.
He said the Legislature did not properly calculate the inflation and add it to the amount. Instead, they added one year of inflation instead of four years of inflation, he said.
“It would appear the Legislature fit their remedy to what they wanted to spend rather than any recognized way of calculating inflation,” Robb said.
“The state Department of Education calculated it and said it was $360 million, of new money, and so that is four years, each year adding another $90 million,” he said. “That’s not what this bill does. What this bill does, it’s easy to confuse, it adds inflation the first year and just repeats the same number in years two to four.”
“It’s like me telling you I’m giving you a $400 raise, spread over four years,” Robb said. “I give you $100 this year. Next year I let you keep the $100, third year, keep the $100, next year, keep the $100. It’s still only $100. It’s ahead of where you were, but they can say they gave you a $400 raise, what’s the beef?”
“They say it meets the $360 million figure when it doesn’t,” Robb said. “It’s funny math.”
He said his guess is the court will come back and say the amount in the bill is good for this year, but the Legislature may have to come back next year and redo the figures for the ensuing years.
“But your guess is as good as mine,” he added.
Schools for Fair Funding represents about 130,000 children, about one-third of the children in Kansas, Robb said.
The bill that passed the Senate 31-8 on Thursday had bipartisan support, plus the support of Gov. Laura Kelly. Gov. Kelly’s statement on the bill:
“The Kansas Legislature took an important step today towards addressing the needs of our students, supporting our teachers and fully funding our schools. I’m proud this reasonable, commonsense plan was embraced with bipartisan support today. Kansans want their leaders to work together to move our state forward.
“By investing in our local schools, we can ensure that all Kansas children – no matter who they are or where they live – have the opportunity to succeed,” Gov. Kelly stated.
Robb said there were a couple of factors at play in the Legislature’s decision to pass the school funding bill Thursday.
First, they had to pass a bill to satisfy a court deadline, he said. Second, there was a lot of misinformation that they thought somehow would pass court review.
“I think it’s fairly clear that it won’t,” he said.