By SAM ZEFF

A proposed school funding bill in Kansas would add $75 million to the public education system but many educators say that’s far less than they expected and may not be enough to satisfy the state Supreme Court.

Stephanie Clayton, a moderate Republican from Overland Park, says lawmakers in both parties “believe it will take a significantly larger amount” to satisfy their constituents, educators and the court.

The high court ruled the current block grant funding scheme unconstitutional and because it didn’t adequately fund public schools. While the justices didn’t prescribe a dollar figure to fix the problem, they leaned heavily on a district court ruling that suggested the state needs to spend an additional $800 million. An estimate from the Kansas State Department of Education (KSDE) suggested it would take $500 million.

“Most school people would not believe that $75 million alone, particularly after, essentially six or seven years of falling behind on inflation… is going to measurably move student achievement in Kansas,” says Mark Tallman, lobbyist for the Kansas Association of School Boards (KASB).

The bill is the brainchild of Rep. Larry Campbell from Olathe and chairman of the K-12 Budget Committee. Even he acknowledges that $75 million may not be enough.

“I’ve said over and over, this is a starting point,” he says.

Campbell says his bill targets money at the 25 percent of Kansas students working below grade level, that the Supreme Court emphasized as a reason for its ruling.

“I do believe that’s clearly what the court wants,” Campbell says.  “On the dollars, I don’t know.”

However, many educators say the bill doesn’t provide enough new money to fund the kind of intensive effort needed improve the performance of those at-risk students.

The measure also mandates that local districts use part of their local property tax dollars for at-risk and bi-lingual students. Under block grants and the funding formula they replaced, local school boards decided how to spend those dollars.

“If we’re really going to support students who are at-risk, we’re not going to do it by simply moving money from one pocket to another,” says David Smith, Chief of Staff in the Kansas City Kansas School District.

Mark Desetti, the top lobbyist for the Kansas National Education Association, says the bill is a good starting point.

“I think the bill is a workable bill,” Desetti says “It’s not just something you can just stand up and oppose outright because everything in this bill is terrible because that’s not true,” says  Local school districts are most concerned about the parts of the formula that dictate how much additional state aid they will receive and how much they can rely on local property taxes to fund their budgets. Here’s how some local districts would fare under the new state aid proposal according to KSDE:

• Blue Valley plus $3,227,061
• Olathe plus $6,365,442
• Shawnee Mission plus $3,498,223
• KCK  plus $4,941,169
• Turner minus $264,344
• De Soto plus $1,347,811

Under the bill the one local tax districts collect (called the Local Option Budget or LOB) would be split into three levies, each for a different purpose. Currently some districts collect up to 30 percent of their state aid, some districts have option to collect up to 33 percent. It’s complicated but here’s how the same districts fare under the proposed bill. Again, the figures are from KSDE:

• Blue Valley plus $645,053
• Olathe plus $431,442
• Shawnee Mission minus $167,101
• Turner minus $16,480
• De Soto plus $190,180

Hearings are expected to run through the rest of this week and might need to go until Monday.

Time is of the essence, a new funding formula that passes constitutional muster must be in place by June 30 or the high court says it will shut down public schools.

While hearings are now scheduled in the House, the Kansas Senate has yet to work on a funding bill of its own. Many believe senate leadership is waiting for the house to pass its bill first.

Sam Zeff  covers education for  KCUR.org. and the Kansas News Service. Follow him on Twitter @SamZeff. 

OTTAWA COUNTY -A Kansas woman is recovering in a Wichita hospital following an accident on Wednesday in Ottawa County.

Two women were geocaching, described as a “real world outdoor treasure hunting game using a GPS device,”  according to the Geocaching 101 web site.

One woman fell onto rocks from Solomon River Bridge on Kansas 18 south of Bennington, according to Ottawa County Sheriff Keith Coleman.

“I spoke to her mother from the scene but haven’t talked to her today,” said Coleman.

The 36-year-old woman from Minneapolis suffered injuries to her head, leg and arm, according to Coleman.

Emergency responders transported the woman to Salina Regional Medical Center. She was transferred later to a Wichita Hospital, according to Coleman.

Name of the victim was not released.

EMPORIA, Kan. (AP) — A former Kansas driving school instructor has been sentenced to three years of probation for having a 16-year-old student drive to a country road and inappropriately touching her.

The Emporia Gazette  reports that Robert Jones, of Emporia, also was ordered to register as a sex offender and repay the victim’s family for the driving classes when he was sentenced Wednesday for sexual battery. He faces a 12-month jail sentence if he violates the probation terms.

The victim’s mother said her daughter wanted to die after the August incident and was hospitalized after taking two handfuls of Tylenol. She says her daughter is in counseling.

Jones said he was “deeply sorry” and “messed up on a lot of things.” He was the director of the since-terminated UDrive Kansas driving school.

LONDON (AP) — The latest on the attack outside Britain’s Parliament (all times local):

Britain’s prime minister says people from 11 countries were hospitalized after the attack outside Parliament.

Theresa May said that 12 Britons, 3 French, 2 Romanians, 4 South Koreans, 1 German, 1 Pole, 1 Irish, 1 Chinese, 1 Italian, 1 American and two Greeks required hospital treatment. Police earlier said that seven of the 29 who are hospitalized are in critical condition.

A group of students from Emporia USD 253 are in London.  Laura Schwinn reported on social media Wednesday, “We are all good. Enjoying the National Gallery right now.”

 

 

A car on Westminster Bridge has just mowed down at least 5 people. pic.twitter.com/tdCR9I0NgJ

— Radosław Sikorski (@sikorskiradek) March 22, 2017

 

 

A knife-wielding attacker driving an SUV mowed down pedestrians, killing two on Westminster Bridge before breaching Parliament’s grounds and fatally stabbing a police officer. The attacker was then shot dead by police.

Authorities made several arrests in the case overnight.

SHAWNEE COUNTY – A Kansas Sheriff’s Deputy was injured in an accident just before 5p.m. on Wednesday in Shawnee County.

The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 2009 Ford Crown Victoria driven by Shawnee County Deputy Derek Warren Bledsoe, 25, Topeka, was northbound on Landon Road just north of U.S. 24.

The driver lost control of the vehicle and stuck a utility pole.

Emergency crews transported Bledsoe to Stormont Vail. He was properly restrained at the time of the accident, according to the KHP.

Just after 10p.m., Free State electric reported they replaced the damaged pole and restored power in the area. They had to shut down a substation to complete the repairs, according to the company social media account.

The accident investigation delayed the start of the repairs.

RENO COUNTY — A Kansas man arrested in March of 2016 after he allegedly held a Westar Energy employee at gunpoint was in court Wednesday where he entered a plea.

Marc Miller, 66, rural Reno County was charged with one count of aggravated assault, but entered a plea to a lesser charge of felony criminal threat.

Miller held the victim, 61-year-old Brent Bunting, a Westar Energy employee, from leaving his home east of Hutchinson after Bunting replaced an electric meter at the residence

Bunting told deputies that when he arrived at the residence to exchange the electrical meter, he went to the front door of the residence and knocked.

No one answered the door, so Bunting put one of the fliers in the doorway and walked to the east side of the house to exchange the meter.

After exchanging the meter, Bunting said a white male appeared and told him he did not have permission to be on the property and to put the meter back.

Bunting tried to explain that he couldn’t do that, and began walking towards his Truck. Miller told him he needed to come sit down. Bunting ignored Miller’s request.

Bunting said that Miller stepped into the residence through a sliding glass door and came right back out with a shotgun and then told Bunting again that he wasn’t leaving.

Bunting made his way back up to the front of the residence where an outside table is located and sat in a chair at that location.

Bunting told deputies that while he was seated at the table, Miller allowed him to call his supervisor.

When deputies arrived on scene they confronted Miller with a rifle. After some verbal commands, he gave up without incident.

Miller was arrested for aggravated assault and kidnapping and was transported to the Reno County Correctional Facility without incident.

Miller is free on bond and is scheduled for sentencing in April

The case was handled by Harvey County Attorney David Yoder, who agreed to act as a special prosecutor after the local DA’s office recused itself.

MANHATTAN -Casting for the popular CBS reality show Big Brother is officially underway and fans of the show here in Kansas will have a chance to make an appearance! 

Two casting events will be held next month in Manhattan and Pittsburg.

The event in Manhattan will be held on Tuesday, April 11th from 4PM-7PM at Kite’s Bar & Grill. The Pittsburg event will take place eleven days later on Saturday, April 22nd from 2PM-5PM at Pittsburg State University Plaster Center.

You may also apply online here. The deadline for the online applications will be May 5.

SUMNER COUNTY – A sixth earthquake in March shook portions of Kansas on Wednesday.

The quake just before 4:30p.m. measured 2.5 and was centered approximately 21 miles east of Caldwell, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

They reported two quakes last week and three quakes were recorded in Kansas the week of March 6, including two in Sumner County and one in Harper County. They were approximately all the same strength, according to the USGS.

In February, the agency recorded six Kansas earthquakes. They measured from 2.5-3.3 magnitude.
A 4.0 earthquake and three smaller temblors also hit Oklahoma on Wednesday according to the USGS.

There have no reports of damage or injury from Wednesday’s quake.

LEAVENWORTH, Kan. (AP) — A former worker at a youth center on Kansas’ Fort Leavenworth has been sentenced to seven years and seven months in prison for the sexual abuse of a 13-year-old girl.

The Kansas City Star reports that 24-year-old Nicholas Clark was sentenced in Leavenworth County District Court for aggravated indecent liberties with a child and aggravated solicitation of a child.

Authorities said Clark solicited the child at the center in August 2014, and that the girl’s mother went to police after finding conversations between Clark and the girl on the girl’s cell phone.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas legislators are trying to avoid the kind funding moves with public employee pensions that previously clouded the retirement system’s long-term financial health.

But lawmakers are wrestling with the state’s serious budget problems and were not sure Wednesday whether the state could afford its full, annual commitments.

Republican Gov. Sam Brownback has proposed freezing annual pension contributions at 2016 levels to help erase projected budget shortfalls totaling more than $1 billion through June 2019.

The Senate budget committee has added a total of $330 million to its proposed budgets for the two fiscal years beginning in July 1 to keep contributions where they’re supposed to be. Its House counterpart voted Wednesday to put off a decision.

The annual contributions were set to increase to bolster the pension system’s health.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A man has been acquitted in a fatal home invasion shooting near Topeka.

The Topeka Capital-Journal reports that 26-year-old Angel Gabriel Olavarria-Velez was cleared Friday of premeditated first-degree murder in the 2014 death of 29-year-old Dustin McKinney and several other felonies.

Defense attorney Gary Conwell said Tuesday that Olavarria-Velez told him from the beginning that he wasn’t involved in the slaying. After the final prosecution witness testified, Conwell sought a directed verdict from the judge for acquittal. Court records show that prosecutors didn’t oppose it.

Olavarria-Velez did plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge of intimidation of a witness and felony interference with law enforcement. Sentencing is set for May 11.

Another man pleaded no contest previously to voluntary manslaughter in McKinney’s death, and two others were arrested last week.

SHAWNEE COUNTY – Three people were injured in an accident just before 12:30p.m. on Wednesday in Shawnee County.

The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 2017 Kenworth Trash Truck driven by Timmy C. McMahon, 57, Topeka, was southbound on U.S. 75 and exited on the ramp to eastbound U.S. 24.

The truck traveled to the left side of the ramp then into the median where it rolled.

McMahon and passengers Eric Michael Tyszko, 49, and Larry D. Housworth, 46, both of Topeka, were transported to Stormont Vail.

They were not wearing seat belts, according to the KHP.