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Kansas Supreme Court to see how new school funding stacks up

By John Hanna | Associated Press - | May 9, 2016

TOPEKA — Critics of Kansas’ new public school funding law are illustrating what they see as its flaws with before-and-after towers of Legos: The blocks change color, but the stack doesn’t grow any larger.

The state Supreme Court plans to hear arguments this week on whether legislators satisfied a mandate to improve funding for poor schools by, in effect, swapping green blocks for yellow ones — making technical changes in how state aid is distributed without affecting most districts’ share or boosting overall state spending.

The state’s lawyers have submitted nearly 950 pages of material from the Legislature’s debate to back up its case that the changes satisfy the high court’s February mandate, which came in a lawsuit filed in 2010 by four of the state’s 286 school districts.

The key issues at stake before Tuesday’s arguments:


FUNDING SWAP

The Republican-dominated Legislature rewrote the state’s school finance law in 2014 in response to an earlier Supreme Court order to boost aid to poor districts, but after the price tag ballooned, a new law was enacted last year meant to make school funding more predictable.

The districts in the 2010 lawsuit objected, and the high court agreed that poor schools still were denied their fair share of the state’s more than $4 billion a year in aid. Lawmakers were given until June 30 to fix the problems or risk having schools shut down.

In this year’s fix, Republican legislators changed how each district’s aid is calculated. Most won’t see any overall change. Twenty-three will see small increases, but the state will tap an existing educational emergency fund to avoid an overall jump in school money.

Lawmakers’ solution prompted attorneys for the districts — Dodge City, Hutchinson, Wichita and Kansas City, Kansas — to include a photo of stacks of Legos in a court filing. Lawyer John Robb said they hope to stack blocks during arguments.

“It cured nothing,” Robb said. “When you stack those two stacks up, they’re exactly the same.”


POLITICAL REALITIES

It was necessary for legislators to prevent any school district from losing money even as they sought to improve funding for poorer ones, the state’s attorneys argue in court filings. They also say the technical changes are in line with past guidelines.

Legislative committees considered proposals to boost total money to poor districts by taking funds away from as many as 100 districts. But those measures garnered little support — partly because districts in Johnson County, the state’s most populous, faced big losses.

Republican lawmakers note that past school finance changes have come with provisions that prevent school districts from immediately losing money.

Senate Majority Leader Terry Bruce, a Nickerson Republican, said legislators have a “more comprehensive view” of school funding issues than the Supreme Court because the justices are focused on the evidence before them and not broader political issues.


BUDGETARY REALITIES

The state’s ongoing budget problems also limited what legislators could do.

Kansas has struggled to balance its budget since the state slashed personal income taxes in 2012 and 2013 at GOP Gov. Sam Brownback’s urging in an effort to stimulate the economy. Brownback hasn’t backed off his signature tax cuts, and neither chamber showed enough of an appetite for reversing them this year.

Lawmakers couldn’t find the money to increase aid to public schools, though they did include a provision in budget legislation to block Brownback from cutting the total — something many of them thought would be a bad idea with the lawsuit still before the Supreme Court.

“The solution we put forth was the one that was best for all schools and not just the ones suing the state,” said House Appropriations Committee Chairman Ron Ryckman Jr., an Olathe Republican.


WHAT’S NEXT?

The Supreme Court is expected to rule quickly.

The Legislature isn’t scheduled to meet again aside from a brief June 1 adjournment ceremony. However, if the court rejects the school funding changes, lawmakers could go back for another try — and some predict it will happen.

“We will have to do it sometime in June,” said Democratic Rep. Jim Ward, of Wichita.