Schools, state primed for Supreme Court showdown over Brownback block grants

Tens of millions of dollars for schools and the immediate future of public educational finance in Kansas will be on the line Friday when lawyers representing school districts and the state go before the Kansas Supreme Court to argue whether Gov. Sam Brownback’s block-grant funding plan for schools is constitutional.

How we got here:

In the case of Gannon v. Kansas, four school districts – Wichita, Hutchinson, Dodge City and Kansas City – have sued alleging that the state has failed to meet its constitutional obligation to provide adequate and equitable funding to all school districts.

Last year, the Supreme Court ordered the Legislature to correct inequities in funding between wealthy and poor school districts.

To comply with the order, legislators passed a law they thought would add about $134 million: $109 million in “Local Option Budget” equalization, which provides extra money for school districts with low property values; and $25 million in “capital outlay” funds that help pay for new schools and major renovations of existing buildings.

However, because of changes in property valuations and schools’ building plans, it turned out to be more costly than the Legislature expected. Under its formula, schools would have gotten about $35 million more than the Legislature planned in LOB aid and $17 million more in capital outlay.

Earlier this year, at Brownback’s urging, the Legislature passed Senate Bill 7, which repealed the school finance formula and is funding schools through “block grants” based on current school funding. The block-grant program was designed as a two-year stopgap while the Legislature tries to hammer out a new formula for permanently financing the schools.

The school districts went to court alleging the block-grant plan is unconstitutional. A specially appointed three-judge school finance court agreed and ordered the state to restore the previous funding formula.

The state appealed and now the case is before the Supreme Court.

Brownback said he has no prediction on how the appeal will go and stands by his claim that schools are getting more money, not less, under the block-grant system.

The school districts argue:

▪  The Legislature promised full LOB and capital outlay funding and then reneged in violation of the Supreme Court order. That’s forcing school districts to cut education programs at the local level, and the state owes them $52 million.

▪  The block grants are inequitable because they freeze operating funds without adequately accounting for rising costs and increases in school enrollment. That means that growing districts have to serve more students on less money per pupil than stable or shrinking districts.

▪  The state has sought to camouflage operational cuts to schools and falsely claim increases in school funding, by counting money that actually goes to the Kansas Public Employee Retirement System and can’t be used for educating students today. The retirement funds are electronically transferred to the school districts to be counted as state aid to education, and then, within minutes, transferred back out to KPERS.

The state argues:

▪  The school-finance court overstepped its authority and infringed on the Legislature’s budgeting powers by ordering the state to restore LOB and capital outlay funding to what was promised last year.

▪  “Doomsday predictions” by the school districts haven’t come true, and Kansas K-12 students still outperform the national average.

▪  The block grants didn’t actually cut school funding; they just reduced the amount of increase the districts were expecting.

▪  The Legislature doesn’t have to provide absolutely equal education to students across the state to meet its equity obligation. The legal standard is “reasonably equal access to substantially similar educational opportunities through similar tax effort.”

How are Kansas schools doing anyway?

In its written brief, the state offered evidence from the 2013 National Assessment of Educational Progress – also known as “the Nation’s Report Card” – showing Kansas ranking 4th to 15th in the nation for fourth- and eighth-grade math and reading.

But that brief was written before the 2015 numbers came in, showing an almost across-the-board drop on the NAEP tests.

The new results showed a six-percentage-point drop in fourth-graders meeting basic math achievement levels. Fourth-grade reading and eighth-grade math were each down three percentage points.

The only gain was a one-percentage-point rise in eighth-grade reading.

Kansas fourth-graders, significantly above the national averages in math and reading scores from 2000 through 2013, have now fallen to average in reading and only one point above average in math.

What to expect Friday:

Oral arguments to the Supreme Court are different from what most people envision when they think of a court proceeding. There are no witnesses and there’s no jury.

It’s kind of like a legal “lightning round” where the presenting lawyers will spend most of their time fielding difficult questions from the justices. Also unlike a regular court hearing, the lawyers will be on a countdown clock. Each side gets 30 minutes total to make its case.

How to keep up:

The Wichita Eagle and Kansas.com will have team coverage starting at 9 a.m. Friday.

Reporter Bryan Lowry will provide live updates on significant developments on Twitter; follow him at @BryanLowry3.

Reporter Dion Lefler will be in the courtroom covering the arguments in detail; watch www.kansas.com Friday for his reports.

The Supreme Court will carry a live video stream of the arguments on its website, www.kscourts.org.

This story was originally published November 4, 2015 at 2:44 PM with the headline "Schools, state primed for Supreme Court showdown over Brownback block grants."