Kansas views on school funding, concealed-carry, college disclosure bill, renewable energy
School funding – If there ever was a question what an urban takeover of public education would look like, it can be found in the block-grant bill. The long and short of the plan is this: Kansas will throw a fixed amount of money at each school district in the state. But it is also much more – a step forward in a long-simmering desire to force rural schools to consolidate or close instead of shifting state money from richer districts to meet the constitutional requirement to provide an equal education for all the state’s children, regardless of location.
Leaders in the Kansas House and Senate made sure the new school finance bill skated through the Legislature in record time. For the sake of public school districts throughout the state, the governor, attorney general and Kansas Supreme Court now must make sure the legal ramifications of this bill are settled with equal dispatch. This is a complicated issue made far more complicated by the political battles and the growing disregard the governor and legislators are expressing for the state’s judicial branch.
There simply aren’t any good reasons why Kansas children should bear the brunt of Gov. Sam Brownback’s reckless income tax cuts. Thank goodness we have three coequal branches of government. It appears it will be up to the judiciary to help rein in executive and legislative branches not acting on behalf of the people they are supposed to be serving. The Kansas Constitution requires lawmakers to adequately fund K-12 public education. An accounting is in order.
Concealed-carry – Lawmakers in Topeka are about to show whom they really represent. Not us. A SurveyUSA poll found that 80 percent of Kansans do not support concealed-carry without training and permits. Still, a majority of the House is expected to approve Senate Bill 45, which has already passed the Senate. Our lawmakers are voting to assuage single-issue, minority groups that do not represent their constituencies. Put together with the vote for block grants for school finance, which had almost no support among educators or parents, the vote on SB 45 underscores the reality that our lawmakers are not really ours.
College disclosure – The Kansas Senate’s budget committee has passed to the full Senate a bill that would require the state’s public universities to compile and publish financial information related to the cost of a degree and real-world earnings of graduates. Add one more bill to the list of nonsensical issues legislators have wasted time on this year as they wait until the final hour to begin serious work on the biggest issue facing them – the state’s budget. The full Senate shouldn’t waste much time on this bill. It costs money and duplicates information readily available elsewhere if students and their parents are interested.
Renewable energy – The struggle over renewable energy standards has trouble competing with school funding and tax issues for attention this legislative session. Yet Kansans should know that efforts are again underway to weaken existing – and reasonable – legislation pertaining to renewable energy standards for electric utilities. These standards are good for Kansas workers and good for the environment at almost no cost to ratepayers.
This story was originally published March 22, 2015 at 7:07 PM with the headline "Kansas views on school funding, concealed-carry, college disclosure bill, renewable energy."