School funding far short of need
The $366,000 awarded Monday by the State Finance Council to the Wichita school district is better than nothing, though far short of the $980,000 requested or the $1.1 million premium the district paid into the extraordinary needs fund.
Serving hundreds of students who’ve found safe haven in Wichita from Myanmar, Somalia and elsewhere would seem to fit the definition of an “extraordinary need.” Such students, including some who are even illiterate in their native languages and have little school experience, require special English instruction and trauma counseling – support far beyond what the district provides its large populations of immigrant and poor children.
It’s to the Wichita district’s credit that it is willing and able to teach these vulnerable students, in partnership with Episcopal Wichita Area Refugees Ministries, the International Rescue Committee and the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement. So the uncaring comments of some State Finance Council members were disappointing.
House Speaker Ray Merrick, R-Stilwell, told Associated Press: “When groups bring people or send people, the money ought to come with them. You dump people on us and expect us to pick up the tab.”
The council, led by Gov. Sam Brownback, agreed to give the district extra dollars to cover only the 92 refugees who had enrolled since last September to support hiring additional teachers, paraprofessionals and counselors.
And if the $366,000 won’t address the ongoing needs of the 132 others who started the 2014-15 year, or the looming costs of teaching the 145 more anticipated to enroll before the current school year ends?
Well, now that begging is officially part of the state’s finance of K-12 schools through the block-grant funding law, districts apparently must be glad for whatever they get. At least Wichita was invited to make its case, both in August and on Monday. Other districts in budget shock over falling property valuations had been told last week not to bother to show up.
In the end Monday, the council approved a total $4.2 million in requests for 27 districts, mostly to ease budget problems stemming from higher enrollments or lower oil and gas valuations. Friday’s down-scaled state revenue estimates make it less likely that schools will see the $2.9 million still unspent.
“We continue to see that remnants of the old formula create financial challenges for some of our districts,” Brownback said in a statement about the extraordinary needs fund.
But like the block-grant law that created it last spring, the fund is serving mostly to make that old school-finance formula look good by comparison. It at least anticipated and accounted for enrollment growth.
And if the impressions left by Friday’s Kansas Supreme Court hearing in the Gannon school-finance lawsuit prove accurate, the justices will agree with the suing school districts that the block-grant law is worsening inequities among districts as well as failing to cover K-12 costs overall.
For the editorial board, Rhonda Holman
This story was originally published November 9, 2015 at 6:06 PM with the headline "School funding far short of need."