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Though a Brownback administration plan to overhaul the state’s school-funding system is still in the conceptual phase, it appears headed toward off-loading more funding responsibilities on local communities, which could increase the resource inequities between wealthy and poorer school districts and lead to more court battles.
Landon Fulmer, policy director for Gov. Sam Brownback, outlined some possible funding changes last week at a meeting of school administrators. These include setting a new baseline for state aid, removing the cap on local-option property taxes, allowing counties to vote on a special sales tax for schools, and shifting to block grants for some funding.
Such reforms would play well in Johnson County, which has high property values and a desire to raise its own taxes to help fund schools. But the changes likely would increase funding inequities — the very problem that threw the state’s school-finance system into the courts.
The plan would try to mitigate this inequity by requiring wealthier districts to share a portion of their local property and sales taxes with poorer districts. But how much would be shared and how the equalization would work haven’t been decided.
It’s also unclear what the motive is for the reform. The current funding system, though complicated, does a pretty good job of directing resources where needed. The problem has been that the state hasn’t funded it adequately — which is why it keeps losing lawsuits.
Still, given budget pressure from increasing Medicaid costs and the scheduled phaseout of a portion of the statewide sales-tax increase, combined with Brownback’s desire to cut income taxes, schools are unlikely to get significant funding increases from the state in the foreseeable future. It is also unlikely that the current lawsuit over school funding will be resolved anytime soon.
As a result, some school districts may conclude that the possibility of a little more local money is better than the likelihood of no new state money — though, of course, the money comes out of taxpayers’ pockets either way.
As is, districts are struggling to deal with reduced state funding and, in many cases, already are raising local taxes.
Of the 72 superintendents who responded to a Hutchinson News survey, 60 said they have cut a total of at least 633 jobs this year, including 340 teaching jobs. In addition, at least 42 of the school districts surveyed increased their property taxes as part of their local-option budgets. And of those districts that didn’t increase their taxes, 22 couldn’t go higher because they were at the statutory cap.
Many superintendents said the cuts in state aid had shifted a greater share of the cost of schools from the state to local property taxes. If the Brownback administration’s plan continues in the direction it’s headed, that shift likely will accelerate.
