By KARI BLURTON
Hays Post
This September, for the first time, all county treasurers in Kansas will mail the county’s real estate tax revenues to the state of Kansas instead of their school districts.
The funds, earmarked for school districts each year, then will be sent back to the school districts from the state.
The new provision is part of the state’s school funding compromise bill passed in the spring — and is puzzling superintendents and administrators in Ellis County and across the state.
Republican leaders say the change was made so the state could create the “audit trail” required by the Kansas Supreme Court school funding ruling.
John Robb, attorney for Schools for Fair Funding, said that reasoning is flawed.
“That’s just crazy. There is nothing on the Supreme Court opinion about audit trails or tracing of the funds. There is no justification whatsoever coming from the Supreme Court for shifting that local money to the state and then back to the locals,” Robb said. “Whoever is using that rationale is being really creative to try to come up for a reason for this bill, but it didn’t come from the Supreme Court.”
He said his guess is those responsible are thinking, “By gosh we will take that local money and take it to the state and we will get credit for giving it to the schools — it doesn’t give the schools a dime more for the classrooms.”
Robb said the state has been notorious in similar situations with being late on payments — a fact that is worrisome to Hays USD 489 administrators.
“I think the biggest fear most of us have is that if the state gets their hands on it, it can end up like many others things — that they can delay those payments,” said USD 489 Superintendent Dean Katt said. “We talk about our reserves being down and making sure we can pay bills at the end of the month, if in fact, they do delay payments. With looking at (state) revenue streams being down the last three months, (there is) probably a real possibility that could happen.”
According to a June report from Kansas Revenue Secretary Nick Jordan, June’s tax collections missed estimates by $28 million, pushing the shortfall for the fiscal year to nearly $338 million.
Assistant Superintendent for Special Services Mark Hauptman shares Katt’s concerns.
“Will we get a cash flow basis coming that allows us to fund our operation in a timely manner? This is not the first time in history this type of manipulation has occurred,” Hauptman said. “It happened a few years ago with KPERS funding, which is our state retiree pension fund. That money flows to the district. The same day, it has to be sent back electronically to the state again.
“Again, that was a politically motivated act to just simply say the state is funding education at a higher level when, it fact, it makes no difference in the amount of funding or what anyone receives,” he added.
Katt said the provision is similar to the one in which state-mandated tenure was removed for K-12 teachers, in that the issue was never discussed or debated and many legislators were not even aware of the provision until after it passed.