Does Kansas have a school finance agreement? Wichita school district says no

On the eve of a special legislative session, the Senate budget chairman said the Wichita school district had agreed to support a plan to address inequities in school funding and avert a school shutdown.

But school representatives disputed that.

Sen. Ty Masterson, R-Andover, said negotiations between Wichita and four other school districts had resulted in agreement on a plan to spend $38 million to address a Kansas Supreme Court order to fix inequities in school funding.

Some of that money would come from other areas of the education budget

Lawmakers must act before the end of June or risk school closures.

“The last conversation I had with the group of superintendents, everybody agreed that we had a reasonable solution,” Masterson said.

Rep. Ron Ryckman, R-Olathe, the House budget chair, said the plan would shift existing K-12 funds and tap other revenue sources in order to provide additional aid to poor school districts.

Masterson said an agreement was forged Monday and that superintendents were still on board after reviewing financial numbers Tuesday.

“And my last conversation with (Wichita Superintendent John) Allison, for example, was a phone call Tuesday afternoon and that conversation concluded with ‘If anything’s changed, let me know’ and I’ve not heard from him or anybody who represents him.”

But Alan Rupe, a lawyer for Wichita and other districts suing the state, said the plan that is being discussed “is not a plan that we think the court is going to accept.”

“It just shifts money around and provides additional money at the expense of a tax on the poorer district,” Rupe said. “We think the money should come from some other source other than the schools themselves, and we feel fairly confident the court will reject any plan that provides additional funding by way of a tax on schools that need the help.”

Allison said in an e-mail that the district had not yet decided whether to support this or any plan.

“Yes we have had conversations with many parties about many of the measures being considered. Now we wait to see what the plans actually look like before we take a position,” Allison said. “The devil is in the details, so we look forward to seeing those plans tomorrow.”

‘A true compromise’

The talks had been facilitated by Education Commissioner Randy Watson. They involved two of the districts suing the state for more funding, Wichita and Kansas City, Kan., and three districts from Johnson County that stand to lose money if the state restores its old equalization formula. The court has identified that as a suitable fix.

Masterson called the plan “a true compromise.”

“I mean, the schools are coming to the table and so was the Legislature to find a solution that keeps schools open,” he said.

He added that it does not include a “hold harmless” provision sought by Johnson County school districts to ensure that no districts lost money under a proposed solution.

“There’s no hold harmless. The courts clearly didn’t want a ‘hold harmless,’ so there’s no hold harmless. … We went around the room and they all agreed with it. I guess we’ll see how good their word is,” Masterson said.

Masterson’s House counterpart, Ryckman, put the situation more tentatively.

“We’re very close,” he said, explaining that lawmakers were working to get buy-in from school districts.

A spokeswoman for the Blue Valley school district in Johnson County would not comment Wednesday evening. The Shawnee Mission school district also did not return a request for comment about Masterson’s statements.

House Speaker Ray Merrick, R-Stilwell, said Wednesday afternoon that he thinks the plan, could pass the House.

“But anything we do there’s going to be five factions that want to do something else,” Merrick said. “Hopefully we can it get done quicker. Sooner than later. You know bad things happen when we’re here a long time.”

Block grants ruled inequitable

Lawmakers are returning to Topeka on Thursday for a special session because the state Supreme Court ruled that a block grant system of funding was inequitable.

Lawmakers had approved the block grants to replace a longstanding school finance formula. The old school finance law included an equalization formula that provided money to poorer districts that can’t raise as much from property taxes as richer districts.

Johnson County superintendents had expressed concern that restoring the old equalization formula would take money from their districts, which receive more under the block grants. They had called for lawmakers to hold their districts harmless – to not cut their funding while boosting the funding of poorer districts.

However, the plaintiff attorneys had said that a bill with a “hold harmless” provision could be ruled unconstitutional.

Mark Tallman, lobbyist for the Kansas Association of School Boards, said lawmakers have made more of an effort to involve districts directly in the decision-making process compared with a few months ago when the Legislature passed a bill that was ultimately rejected by the court.

“I do think there has been an effort to try to say, well, what could the school community accept, and that creates a challenge of how do you find something that is broadly supported by all school districts when they’re almost invariably be affected in different ways,” Tallman said.

“People really do seem to be trying to reach agreement, but clearly it has not been easy to get there,” he said.

Contributing: Matt Riedl of The Eagle

This story was originally published June 22, 2016 at 1:06 PM with the headline "Does Kansas have a school finance agreement? Wichita school district says no."