By Dave Ranney

A legislator who tried to expand Kansas elementary schools’ access to a software program designed to help students learn to read says he’s pulled the plug on his effort.

“There’s $2.1 million in the budget now, but that’s to keep us where we are,” said Rep. Will Carpenter, an El Dorado Republican and chair of the House Social Service Budget Committee. “Expansion is gone; it’s dead. We don’t have the money.”

Earlier this year, Carpenter said he planned to propose using money in the state’s Children’s Initiatives Fund to give more elementary schools access to a software program called Lexia Reading Core 5. But in recent weeks, he said, he changed his mind.

“I thought there would be more money in the fund than there was, so I’ve not proposed anything and I’m not going to,” Carpenter said. “I just didn’t feel good about it … given the (budget) quandary we’re in now.”

Legislators have spent much of the last few weeks looking for ways to raise about $430 million needed to balance the state’s budget and end the 2015 session. The Children’s Initiatives Fund is a repository for monies generated by the state’s master settlement agreement with the nation’s tobacco companies.

For the past two years, the state has funded access to Lexia for elementary schools. The program generated controversy in 2013 after Rep. Marc Rhoades, a Newton Republican and then-chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, added a last-minute proviso to a session-ending budget bill that earmarked $12 million in tobacco master settlement revenues — $6 million a year for two years — for Educational Design Solutions, a small company owned by Don Fast, who lives in Rhoades’ district.

Educational Design Solutions sells licensed access to the Lexia software. Rhoades’ proviso did not allow other software companies to bid on the program. Lawmakers upheld the proviso and Gov. Sam Brownback allowed it to become law even though it had not been the subject of committee hearings in the House or Senate.

Fast and Rhoades denied any wrongdoing. Brownback did not include the $6 million for Lexia in his proposed budget for fiscal year 2016, which begins July 1.

Legislators have agreed to leave $2.1 million in next year’s budget with the understanding that other software companies will be invited to bid on the contract based on criteria developed by the Kansas Department of Education.

“Assuming the $2.1 million stays in the budget, the next step will be for the state to put out an RFP (request for proposal),” said Denise Kahler, a spokesperson for the Kansas Department of Education.

“If Lexia is selected again, fine, the schools can continue on. If Lexia is not selected, schools can still continue on but at their own expense if they choose to stay with Lexia.” In an email, Fast said Educational Design Solutions intends to bid on the contract. Almost 300 of the state’s 770 elementary schools have signed up for Lexia, he said.

 

Dave Ranney is a reporter for Heartland Health Monitor, a news collaboration focusing on health issues and their impact in Missouri and Kansas.