When the state legislature convenes again in January, many students are curious about whether or not they will head back to school on time again next year.
Last year the Kansas Supreme Court ruled that the school finance plan that the legislature approved of was unconstitutional.
Senator Laura Kelly said, “We’ve always operated under a school finance formula. The last one we operated was in the 90s and we’ve been operating under that for 25 years, with modifications. Then the legislature imposed a two year block grant where you got the same amount of money for two years, it didn’t matter if the amount of students in your district was raised.”
The legislature did nothing to fix school formula until after the 2016 election, when many anti-education politicians were defeated. Kelly says “Kansas is largely pro public schools, however many private schools and homeschooled students want money as well.”
When asked about the 2017 funding formula State Representative and UDS 345 School Board President Fred Patton says, “I like the formula we put in place, the main question is the base amount.”
There are two parts to the constitutionality of school finance- equity and adequacy. Equity means that regardless of if students live in the city, or a small rural town, they have an equal opportunity for a quality education. Adequacy is ensuring that all the money in the ‘pot’ is being equally divided. Patton says about adequacy, “This is what takes a while- how much money [do we need] and where do we get it.”
He also adds that, “The court says to do your homework, and the House committee did and the Senate did not. It was like if one partner worked for months and the other did it the night before. You come together for the project and get a bad grade.”
Patton says, “At Seaman we haven’t seen the budget affect our schools. We timed our facility upgrades right and combining schools has freed up a lot of money.”
Kelly also says, “Seaman saw the writing on the wall and kept money in contingency funds to be able to maintain services.”
However, Patton does add that if the formula does not change, students will start to see differences in the district; however, USD 345 will be one of the last districts to see changes because of efficient spending. Salaries have been held down for teachers, which is happening across the country.
Small districts have already started to see changes such as large class sizes, transportation issues, and difficulty in recruiting teachers. They have also had to eliminate out of the classroom positions, such as nurses and counselors.
As well as having to fund education, the state also needs to improve transportation and early childhood education. The costs for medicare always rise as well.
The state has lost a lot of revenue due to cutting the tax rate for the top bracket in Kansas. LLC’s, Limited Liability Companies, will now pay taxes again too. Kelly says, “Reinstating these are not enough, hopefully we meet court demand, but it won’t be enough to restore other parts of government.” She also adds, “Anti education’s will says its education versus everything else and say ‘education is taking all the money.’”
Both Patton and Kelly stressed the need to put more money into roads. Kelly added, “Our roads have always been the top in the nation. We have underfunded them the past few years and it’s showing.”
Patton says, “It is hard to put more money into education until we turn things around.”
The 2018 Legislature has until April 30 to send briefs to the Kansas Supreme Court. If it is ruled unconstitutional again, it will be put into the court’s hands and they could shut the schools down. The legislature would have to go into a special session to create a new plan.