TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) – Republican majorities in the Kansas Legislature raced Thursday to approve a new plan to reshuffle education spending, hoping to head off the state Supreme Court’s threat to shut down public schools statewide if lawmakers don’t fix the funding problems by the end of June.
The Senate approved the bill 32-5, and the House passed it hours later, 93-31, sending it to Republican Gov. Sam Brownback, who is expected to sign it. The votes came only two days after bills containing the plan were introduced in the House and Senate, and GOP leaders took special steps to move with unusual speed.
Republican leaders said they were moving quickly to allow the court plenty of time to review the plan ahead of the June 30 deadline. The justices ruled last month that a 2015 finance law denied poor districts their fair share of more than $4 billion in annual aid to the 286 local districts.
“This is the only option that we have,” said Rep. Don Hineman, a Dighton Republican who said he had reservations.
But an attorney for four school districts suing the state predicted that the high court would reject the Republican leaders’ response – a redistribution of $83 million a year, without an overall increase in state spending. While the plan changes how the aid is allocated, it also guarantees that no district loses any aid it already has been promised for the next school year.
Democrats also doubted that the plan will withstand court scrutiny and suggested that if Republican lawmakers had taken more time, they could be confident the court’s demands were being met.
“They are playing Russian Roulette with our schools,” said Rep. Jim Ward, a Wichita Democrat.
Top Republicans argued that even though the plan largely reshuffles existing funds, it does so fairly and in a way that will narrow the gap between local property tax levies between wealthy and poorer districts.
“It was a dictate of the court, with the hammer of closing the schools,” said Senate Ways and Means Committee Chairman Ty Masterson, an Andover Republican and an architect of the plan. “We must respond.”
The Supreme Court has ruled that the Kansas Constitution requires the state to provide a suitable education to every child, and its funding must both be adequate and be distributed to help poor districts keep up with wealthier counterparts. The Dodge City, Hutchinson, Wichita and Kansas City, Kansas, districts sued in 2010 over funding under an old per-pupil aid formula.
GOP lawmakers junked that formula last year in favor of stable “block grants” for districts that makes spending more predictable for the state as it struggles to balance its budget. But the justices said the resulting changes didn’t provide enough extra aid to poor districts for general operating expenses and building repairs and equipment.
The four districts also argue that the state isn’t spending enough money overall on its schools, but the Supreme Court is still reviewing that question. A lower-court panel ruled last year that the state must boost its aid by at least $548 million a year.
John Robb, a Newton attorney representing the four districts, said with all of the changes in the bill, most districts – including his clients – will not see a change in their promised aid. Twenty-three districts would see small increases, but the state would tap an emergency aid fund to cover those extra costs.
“This is a thinly veiled attempt to move money from the left pocket to the right pocket,” Robb said. “I don’t have any question but the court’s going to reject this.”
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Online:
Information on school funding plan: http://bit.ly/1RzGMbV .
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