Gov. Sam Brownback’s first last-gubernatorial-term budget is out, and in some respects, it’s clever and it’s probably close to what he would have liked to have proposed several years ago, but couldn’t because of that darn election business.
Now, whether you 433,196 Kansans who voted for him for governor or you 436,306 Kansans who split your votes between Democrat Paul Davis and Libertarian Keen Umbehr (yes, the two got more votes than Brownback but that’s not how it works), Brownback won and he has pretty much free rein to put together a budget for the next four years.
You get the drift of where he’s going, and will get to continue to go unless Kansas voters—those with children or grandchildren or even neighbor children in public schools—don’t like the trend or maybe don’t like the trend.
In K-12 education his concept is fairly simple: Get rid of the school finance formula and instead block-grant to school districts virtually the same amount of money each got this year, but make them pay for a part of their employees’ pensions.