(Syndicated to Kansas newspapers Nov. 10, 2014)
There are now enough Republicans in the House of Representatives and Senate that newly reelected Gov. Sam Brownback presumably can get about whatever he wants done…
Now, that’s about as good as it gets for a governor who has his own very conservative ideas about where he wants the state to go policy-wise for the next four years and what sort of mark he wants to leave on the state.
Yes, every governor wants to leave a mark, something distinctive that can be traced back to his leadership, in the final term.
And, it appears—barring a sudden economic turnaround in revenues that might or might not happen two or three years into this administration—that it is going to be low-cost innovations that will be what Brownback leaves for Kansas after he is…well, doing whatever he wants to do starting in two or four years.
Oh, that two or four years is because there is a presidential election coming up that Brownback might choose to be a part of.
If the governor’s tax plan takes off—and it might just be that corporations around the nation and world were watching to see whether he got reelected—well, there will likely be money to spend.
But the state revenues may not shoot up, and if so, he’s going to have to find a less costly way to leave a mark on the state besides maybe a highway off-ramp in every county or some method to sneak water from eastern Kansas to western Kansas without the federal government jumping in to stop him.
So, look at some philosophical issues that he might consider. At or near the top of that list of possibilities is public education, plus some method to fund it adequately to meet the Kansas Supreme Court’s view of equal educational opportunities wherever a student lives or to move the responsibility for that funding from the state and into the communities where those pupils live.
There is probably some way to accomplish that, but the quickest is to rein in the Supreme Court’s authority to determine what is a suitable education and the state’s proportional share of the cost of that suitable education.
It’s not being talked about out loud much, but there are legislators in both the House and Senate who are looking at carving the Supreme Court out of what eventually comes down to the state writing a check for K-12 education, and local school boards taking it from there. Maybe a suggestion from the court, maybe some guidelines from the court, but nothing that would allow the court to essentially write the dollar amount of that check the Legislature has to sign.
Constitutional amendment resolutions are floating around that would essentially do that, turn Supreme Court decisions—and we’re awaiting one now on adequacy of funding for K-12 education—into essentially a suggestion. Sorta like those notes some of us have seen in the screen door telling us it is time to mow…
Nobody doesn’t want to adequately finance public education, but there are practical budget limits that the governor and legislators have to stay within, and there are enough slogans and catch-phrases to make those limits sound like either brutal financial necessities or good public policy.
And, there’s the similarly brutal counter offensive possible. Anyone thinking what would happen if Brownback’s budget for K-12 next session or legislative trimming of that budget would make, say, high school football or basketball unaffordable?
Strange to think about, but something like high school sports could be the nuclear option for schools which are squeezed by state funding and the ability or willingness of district property taxpayers to see their tax bills rise.
Or, of course, we might just see Brownback propose to leave a mark on state government by trimming out some of those assistants to secretaries of state Cabinet agencies or the motor pool switching to motor scooters and Priuses.
We’ll see about this legacy business, won’t we…