The High Court of Kansas ruled today in two parts.
The Kansas Supreme Court ruled unanimously Friday that the state needs to increase funding for public K-12 schools, but sent the decision back to the Shawnee County District Court to enforce.
The Supreme court dismissed claims from individual plaintiffs in Gannon v. State of Kansas but ruled school districts had standing to bring the claims. The court also rejected the state's argument that the court had no authority to decide whether or not the Kansas Legislature had underfunded education.
The Supreme Court set a July 1 deadline to give the Kansas Legislature an opportunity to respond.
http://kcur.org/...
The suit, which was brought in multiple parts, by districts and students looked for a short while to be favoring the state, as the litigation by the parents was dismissed without standing in the first releases from the court. That dismissal was a Pyrrhic victory, though, in that it didn't take but a few minutes for the court to gut the Browback education plan, which over the last four years has significantly cut per student funding in the state.
Brownback and his group had argued, repeatedly and loudly that the state of Kansas spends more now on education then it did in 2000. They argued that the largest costs were fees for retirement and cost of teachers. In order to influence that, the state moved to make retirement benefits and pensions a public line item and considered a 'part of the whole' of education costs.
The pension funds and school finance formula are separate line items in the state budget, but Brownback stressed they are linked. Kansas spends more than $3 billion on K-12 education annually, plus contributes $323 million to the retirement fund for teachers and staff members.
Dale Dennis, deputy education commissioner for fiscal and administrative services, said legislators made the decision about seven years ago to require school districts to show pension funds on their budgets, even though the revenues come from the state.
http://cjonline.com/...
Lawyers representing the school districts saw through most of this argument and made their point clear.
Robb said it “is absurd” to think that schools must shoulder the cost of making the pension system solvent, noting income tax cuts Kansas enacted in 2012 have reduced how much money the state has to spend on services.
“The state pension plan and the schools are both state responsibilities and both are underfunded,” Robb said. “The constitution protects education. It does not protect tax cuts.”
You see, the state constitution has a mandate for school funding. There is no mandate for specific tax levels.
What Brownback has done is work to create an argument that there should be lots of ways to trim costs (specifically in teacher costs and schools) while talking out of the other side of his mouth that the teacher pay and benefits should be attractive enough to get 'the best and brightest'. Apparently so they can be used as a pinata.
What Brownback's staff also fails to account for is the increased cost of operations for school districts. These factors, like increased cost in electricty, fuel, insurance and other factors also play up why we spend more today then we did in 2000. I want you to imagine busing a few hundred kids around every day today, at $3.44/gallon in Diesel versus 2000, when that same cost was $1.03. Do you think that has just the sligthest bit of impact on the cost of operations?
Brownback officially issued a statement:
http://news.yahoo.com/...
"This is a complex decision that requires thoughtful review," Brownback said in a statement. "I will work with leadership in the Kansas Senate and House to determine a path forward that honors our tradition of providing a quality education to every child and that keeps our schools open, our teachers teaching and our students learning."
This mirrors Brownback's Twitter feed yesterday which seemed to anticipate the ruling today.
The State representatives of the GOP are weighing in with their thoughts.
Rep. Steve Huebert, R-Valley Center, expressed frustration over the July 1 deadline to restore capital outlay and LOB funding.
“The courts take as long as they want to make their rulings, and they put deadlines on us?” he said.
“We have our structure of deadlines already built in. They have ultimate flexibility. They can do whatever they want whenever they want, year round. For them to be putting on a July 1 deadline, you know, I think that’s presumptuous.”
Huebert said he’s unsure lawmakers will be able to find consensus “even on those two issues” over the next four weeks, before the Legislature wraps up this year’s session.
“The veto wrap-up session might turn into another three to four-week session, and maybe we can get something worked out by then. I don’t know. I know we’ll try.”
Read more here:
http://www.kansas.com/...
So, let's get this straight.. a court case that has been going on for a year that pointed out that the schools have not been funded to constitutionally required levels, and the legislators are now saying there just isn't enough time to fix it/lack of interest/ability to compromise?
We all know how busy the state of Kansas has been on other major issues.
Like ending Sex Ed.
Or when we tried to pass Turn Gays Away.
Or maybe when we got busy and tried to block the internet from rural communites.
Could also be the effort to end no fault divorce.
And of course, the legislative push right now to remove fluoride from our drinking water.
I mean, with that kind of heavy docket going on at the capital, you have to realize taking time to finance schools can be pretty difficult. There just aren't enough hours in the day.