By Jessica Larson
KU Statehouse Wire Service
The Kansas Supreme Court will hear testimony May 10 to decide whether the bill Gov. Sam Brownback signed April 7 meets the Kansas Constitution’s requirement for equitable education funding.
“The legislature has acted to keep Kansas schools open, and I agree with its choice,” Brownback said in a statement on April 7. “I have signed Senate Substitute for House Bill 2655 because I want to keep our schools open and ensure our students continue to have access to a quality education.”
State Attorney General Derek Schmidt notified the Supreme Court within hours of the filing. The court put the case on an expedited schedule.
If the bill is deemed fair, the state’s 286 public schools will stay open. If not, schools will be forced to close on July 1.
The Wichita, Hutchinson and Dodge City school districts, along with Kansas City, Kan., challenged school financing legislation passed in 2015.
Here’s a look at how school districts have fared thus far, and what might lie ahead.
Wichita, District 259
Because Wichita Public Schools did not receive weighted enrollment adjustments to their budgets, it has been a hard year, said school spokeswoman Susan Arensman.
She said freezes in budgets created hard decisions for the district to determine how to pay for fluctuations in transportation, utilities, insurance and other mandatory costs.
“We wound up having to cut 10 percent of each department’s budget that was not employees. That means mileage, supplies, overtime – other services that they had to cut,” she said in reviewing the 2015-2016 school year.
Arensman said the district also lost 13 teaching staff to retirement or resignation. The district did not rehire for any of the positions due to lacking funds.
“Even with (these cuts), we wound up having to use 3 million of contingency reserves to cover some of the increased costs,” she said.
If the budget situation does not change, cuts will be made closer to the students.
“For the past several years, we’ve tried to make cuts as far away from the classroom as possible. We try to take it from the central office or other support positions. After a while, there are only so many cuts you can make,” Arensman said.
A possible budget cut for next year is another 10 percent in non-personnel reductions to all departments.
“That might mean more teachers are having to buy supplies out of their pocket, which they already do,” Arensman said.
The district is debating other solutions for next year’s budget problems, including changing the health plan, lengthening the school day, shortening the school year, changing bus routes and eliminating jobs.
Dodge City, District 443
Dodge City Public Schools need more teachers next year, although financing extra positions will be difficult due to stagnant funding, said William Hammond, the district’s executive director of operations.
Dodge City saw an increase in enrollment and a decrease in revenue last school year. Hammond attributes the lull in funding to the inadequacy of the block grant.
He said the initial block grant cut local option budget equalization by $343,134 and capital outlet equalization by $250,297. He also estimated the district lost around $927,478 due to unaddressed increased enrollment and student need.
“If you combine all of those together, the block grant cost us about $1.5 million this year,” Hammond said. “I think we will be able to add a couple (teaching) positions, but it’s going to be hard because we didn’t get the growth money, and we won’t get the growth money next year.”
Hammond argued Brownback’s new budget proposal is no solution for the district’s funding woes. He said the new plan specifically targets poorer districts, like his.
“The proposal really moves farther away from equalization, not closer,” he said.
The district has not made contingency plans for potential school closings.
Hutchinson, District 308
Shelly Kiblinger, superintendent of the Hutchinson school district, said Brownback’s latest equalization formula locks in an inadequate system. It also fails to generate new money for District 308, which Kiblinger said would lead to further critical cuts for the district.
Kiblinger said the plan furthers inequity because, even if the district gets more students, it won’t receive any additional revenues.
“Legislators have actually tried to move towards the equalization formula that is the most inequitable,” she said. “It’s disequalizing, and it freezes the amount of funds we are able to get for our schools for another year and fails to keep up with inflation.”
Class sizes are growing and student needs are outweighing what the district can address financially, Kiblinger said.
“We are having more students coming to schools who are not ready to learn, for a variety of reasons, and we are needing additional support services to meet those children’s needs both academically, socially and emotionally,” Kiblinger said.
The school is considering what it will do if it is forced to shut down come July.
Some topics up for debate are how to pay bills that might occur during the shut down, how to guarantee teachers’ salaries, and how school days could be made up.
“(Legislators) are going to have to figure out how to create equitable funding as far as what’s constitutional for our students,” Kiblinger said. “I don’t think legislators can solve this problem by themselves. It is going to take them to be willing and open to talk to the schools and find some solutions.”
In February, the state Supreme Court ruled that students across the state, whether they live in rich or poor counties, must have equal access to education. The court said the state’s current block grant funding system does not provide that equity and is unconstitutional. The court said the state has until the end of the fiscal year, June 30, to develop an equitable plan.
Edited by Leah Sitz