(Syndicated to Kansas newspapers May 30, 2016)
A relatively or somewhat, or maybe just not, clever plan by the Kansas Legislature this spring to meet the increasing funding needs of Kansas public schools by shuffling money within the school finance budget law was declared, well, not clever and not constitutional by the Kansas Supreme Court last week.
The decision that the Legislature had failed to provide equitable levels of state support for two provisions of school finance—the Local Option Budget and assistance with district capital outlay funds—came as lawmakers were quietly congratulating themselves on meeting those inequities by shuffling money between funds in the budget.
The court said that the ploy didn’t work, isn’t constitutional in providing equitable support for education of schoolchildren in Kansas and told the Legislature that it has to fix that problem or the roughly $4 billion that the state spends on public education can’t be spent in the fiscal year that starts July 1.
It’s just that. A novel ploy, shuffling money around, and when just applying the distinctly different court-approved formulas for LOB and capital outlay support cost maybe $40 million more than lawmakers wanted—or had—to spend, they pulled a trick. They used the capital outlay formula to compute state aid for the unrelated LOB funds support. That meant that the Legislature spent only a few bucks more than last year for school finance.
The court said that won’t work, that equity in those two programs is constitutionally important, and the Legislature didn’t meet that standard. The politically flavorful “hold harmless” provision that meant no district would lose any state aid in the shuffle just made the inequities worse for many districts.
Well, that decision lit the fuse on a number of politically explosive issues for lawmakers who generally along party lines are (Republican) blasting the court for interfering in legislative matters and threatening to close public schools this fall, or (Democrat) complaints that the majority of the Legislature just wouldn’t vote to provide equal access to the best public education for Kansas’ children.
Oh, don’t forget that the state is nearly broke for whatever reason (Republican) that crop prices, oil prices and aircraft manufacturing are slowing, or (Democrat) that the GOP-tilted legislature gave massive tax breaks to big and small business to win votes, though Democrats don’t often mention that wage-earners’ rate reductions cost the state more in lost revenue than the business cuts.
And then, there’s the big political fight, (Republican) that the court is messing with the products of the Legislature, essentially making law by demanding a costly fix to the school formula, or at least overturning the judgment of the Legislature or not understanding that the hold harmless provision was necessary to get the bill passed. The Democrat side of that scrap is a little unfocused but generally is (excuse us if you’ve heard this before) that the constitution is the constitution and it protects access to equal educational opportunity and Republicans don’t care about schools, kids, global warming, kittens, Mother’s Day, and…well, you see where this goes because just Democrats can’t pass anything or stop anything from being passed in the Legislature.
So, what happens next amidst the political posturing?
Well, because Gov. Sam Brownback single-handedly made budget cuts, that the Legislature wouldn’t or couldn’t, to provide a constitutional (there’s that word again) balanced budget, there may be enough money in the upcoming fiscal year to spend that maybe $50 million to constitutionally support those LOB and capital outlay subsidies to school districts. Or not, depending on how Kansas tax revenues hold up.
So whom do we blame? The Legislature (with appropriate exemptions for members who voted the way we want); the court for reading the Constitution, the school finance bill and deciding that they don’t match up, or…is this just a political season where there was so little money to spend on fancy or frilly programs for Kansans that the political discussion turns from “what I got you” to blaming the other guy (or branch of government)?
We’ll know when the Legislature decides how to respond to the latest court ruling, won’t we?