Legislature told to put money toward underperforming students

The more money lawmakers put toward schools, the more likely the Kansas Supreme Court will find the state’s education funding formula constitutional, an attorney hired by the Legislature said Thursday.

On the flip side, the less lawmakers set aside for schools, the more targeted the funding needs to be toward underperforming students, the attorney, Jeff King, suggested.

King, who a year ago was the Senate vice president before deciding not to run for re-election, is back after legislative leaders hired him to guide the Legislature through the process of crafting a new school finance formula. Under a state Supreme Court order, lawmakers must enact a finance plan by June 30.

The former senator spoke to the House K-12 Budget Committee, which is developing a finance plan. The bill currently calls for school funding to ramp up by $750 million over the next five years.

King avoided telling lawmakers what they should do but cautioned that the smaller the increase in funding, the more highly targeted the money will need to be.

“If you put enough money in the formula, specific formula problems the court has can be overcome by the amount of money,” King said. “If you put less money into the formula, those specific problems become more of a concern for the court.”

The Supreme Court found school funding inadequate in a decision released earlier this year. The opinion cited academic underperformance by 25 percent of students in the state.

Rep. Scott Schwab, R-Olathe, said lawmakers will put more money into the formula.

“I’m not saying we’re not going to put more money in the formula, but the court’s concern was that the funding was not adequate in at-risk, not in the aggregate. Did I hear that right, or did I hear that wrong?” Schwab said.

King replied that it was safe to say the court has the greatest concern with the bottom 25 percent of students. But he said he could not say definitively that they are not concerned with overall funding.

The committee will likely work on the school finance bill, House Bill 2410, on Friday. The panel’s work is being closely watched by other lawmakers because the amount of new funding the measure calls for could affect the ongoing debate over whether to raise taxes.

Kansas faces a budget shortfall of about $900 million over the next two years. Lawmakers are attempting to coalesce around a plan to increase taxes, and one of the most recent plans considered would raise more than $1 billion over two years.

But no plan so far that has received serious legislative attention would generate enough to pay for a ramp-up in school funding of $750 million over the next five years.

This story was originally published May 4, 2017 at 6:05 PM with the headline "Legislature told to put money toward underperforming students."