Kansas’ school funding saga is this close to being over, but some just won’t be happy

The Kansas Legislature is so close to ending a years-long lawsuit over funding of school districts. Look at all the happy folks after Monday’s ruling by the Kansas Supreme Court.

The Court is happy that the Legislature solved the equity part of the funding formula, one of the two prongs of the Gannon lawsuit. It also gave lawmakers an A for effort on the amount of funding, asking that the Legislature convene in January 2019 and adjust for inflation the $522 million it approved over five years.

Lawyers for the school districts suing the state (including Wichita) were happy. Districts will receive more money without closing.

Democrats and moderate Republicans are happy. Though some would love more base funding for education, districts stand to receive somewhere between $50 million to $100 million in inflation-adjusted funding.

Gov. Jeff Colyer was happy in calling it a victory, pointing out increased funding, schools that aren’t closing and the opportunity for more student achievement. Two Republican primary opponents were mostly positive, too: Jim Barnett supported the ruling, and Ken Selzer only called for more accountability of funding dollars.

Ah, but then there was Secretary of State Kris Kobach, another GOP gubernatorial candidate, and his like-minded conservatives. Even with a positive ruling from the Court, even with bipartisan support of the ruling, even with a decade-long lawsuit seeing a finish line … not good enough.

“The Court is acting in a matter that is far outside of its judicial role,” Kobach said in a statement. “The time has come for a constitutional amendment making clear the judiciary of Kansas may not determine education spending amounts.”

Look, Republicans got almost everything they wanted by low-balling school funding during the legislative session. They pushed aside a GOP-solicited report that said as much as $2.1 billion is needed to achieve high-reaching goals and approved about a quarter of that amount, risking a rebuke by the Court and schools shutting down this summer.

So no special session will be required to make a final fix. All lawmakers are being asked to do, in essence, is clean up after themselves and take care of a procedural difference. Senate president Susan Wagle, R-Wichita, suggested it would take a tax increase to fix, but don’t buy that logic just yet.

This can be over early in the 2019 legislative session if Senate and House leaders want it. Show the Court that lawmakers’ 2018 work was in good faith — though seemingly the minimum amount of funding acceptable — and an inflation adjustment is the bow that ties up the package.

Or talk of a constitutional amendment, which would try to remove courts from overseeing the funding process, could dominate the session.

There’s a X-factor to all this, and it’s upcoming elections. The tone of next year’s session will be impacted by the House and governor’s races. An adjustment back to the right after 2016’s gains by moderate Republicans and Democrats could have an amendment gaining momentum.

But for now, be happy. The state Supreme Court kept schools open, acknowledged the Legislature’s efforts, and said a couple tweaks would end the seemingly endless litigation. Everyone — most importantly Kansas schoolchildren — can win here.