Session on cuts draws school reps

By MARY CLARKIN

Special to The Hays Daily News

NEWTON -- A collection of school districts that successfully sued the state previously over inadequate and inequitable funding could decide in August whether to mount a new legal challenge.

"It's certainly an option," said Newton USD 373 Superintendent John Morton, after a two-hour closed session Friday morning in Newton of the Schools for Fair Funding group.

Currently, only 13 of the state's approximately 300 school districts are members or associate members of Schools for Fair Funding, but the session Friday drew additional districts, ranging in size from big Blue Valley USD 229 in Johnson County to Stafford USD 349, which competes against Class 1A schools.

Districts sending officials to the meeting represented, overall, more than 130,000 Kansas students in grades kindergarten through 12, or more than 30 percent of the students in the state, noted John Robb, Newton, a counsel for Schools for Fair Funding.

The next meeting, in which a decision could emerge on future action, will be in latter August in Newton.

School districts were not spared from state revenue cuts in the last fiscal year and in the new fiscal year starting July 1. And the outlook isn't promising.

Federal economic stimulus dollars prevented deeper cuts for education, but that revenue stream will end after a couple of years. Meanwhile, the state is allowing tax cuts to continue to be phased in, noted a school finance report prepared by attorneys for Schools for Fair Funding.

"I think that has to be a driving force," Newton's Morton said of the prospect of the post-stimulus aid years.

Attorneys for Schools for Fair Funding, Alan Rupe, Wichita, and Robb, addressed the audience of school district administrators and school board members, supplying them with charts and figures. The group invited some districts to the meeting, but other districts asked to attend.

Hutchinson USD 308 does not belong to Schools for Fair Funding, but it had a delegation of four -- two administrative staff and two school board members -- present.

"We thought it was important to at least be informed," said USD 308 Superintendent David Flowers.

Flowers indicated the school board would talk about Schools for Fair Funding, but that discussion wouldn't happen at the next board meeting Monday.

Membership in the organization costs about $2 per student, and USD 308 has about 4,500 students. In years when Schools for Fair Funding is waging a legal fight, the assessment can climb to $6 per student.

Schools for Fair Funding pointed out that instead of an anticipated $4,492 base state aid per pupil for the 2009-10 school year -- or $4,597 if it had been adjusted to the Consumer Price Index -- four successive cuts in Topeka reduced it to $4,218 per pupil. In addition to per pupil aid, there have been other reductions, such as special education funding.

"The base is now lower than it was prior to the adoption of the Montoy three-year funding plan," the Schools for Fair Funding report noted, referring to the landmark school finance case that reached the Kansas Supreme Court and represented a victory for the school districts' cause.

The 2009 Legislature and Gov. Mark Parkinson have reduced funding for the new fiscal year by approximately $167.6 million, according to Schools for Fair Funding.

In a statement Friday afternoon from the governor's office, press secretary Beth Martino said Parkinson knows the economic recession and resulting state budget situation have been difficult for everyone involved, including schools.

Parkinson took the necessary action to keep the state budget in balance, and "has made the best possible effort to protect public education, public safety, disabled Kansans and other critical services," Martino said.

The Flint Hills Center for Public Policy, a conservative think tank that has countered some of the school districts' funding arguments, pointed out in a report last month that prior to the education cuts, per-pupil funding in Kansas had climbed 74 percent during the past 10 years, while statewide enrollment remained flat.

Schools for Fair Funding identified one factor contributing to the fiscal crunch: the Legislature's string of tax exemptions, tax repeals, tax credits, tax diversions and tax phase-outs enacted since 1995. The list includes breaks on everything from hearing-aid repair to residential remodeling to businesses' machinery and equipment.

No one in the Legislature looked at how they adequately could fund education because they were intent on "no new taxes," said Newton USD school board member Carol Sue Stayrook Hobbs.

Roll call

Current members of Schools for Fair Funding are the school districts in Arkansas City, Augusta, Dodge City, El Dorado, Emporia, Great Bend, Hays, Independence, Leavenworth and Newton.

Associate members of Schools for Fair Funding are Wichita and Kansas City.

Non-member school districts that sent representatives to the organization's informational session Friday are Blue Valley, Coffeyville, Haysville, Hutchinson, Iola, McPherson, Salina and Stafford.