One of my colleagues in the Kansas House of Representatives is fond of saying that rocket science is difficult; brain surgery is difficult; but understanding Kansas school finance is way beyond that. I suspect he is pretty accurate in that statement.

I am certainly no expert, but the more I learn the more I appreciate the difficulty of the subject matter.

Hundreds of millions of new dollars have been injected into the state's K-12 education system in the past 10 years, and some folks are suggesting that the state's budget deficit can be corrected by cutting back on that funding. However, many rural western Kansas school districts have never seen that new money.

In fact, many of them are struggling to keep up with inflation and are losing the battle. The primary reason why their budgets have not grown while urban budgets have expanded significantly is because the rural schools have been plagued by declining enrollments during the past decade. Since state aid to schools is primarily based on enrollment, less students means less money.

The problem comes when schools try to adjust expenses in response. The school bus has to travel the same route whether it picks up a full bus load or only half a load. If enrollment in the school's only first grade class drops from 25 down to 18, state aid drops significantly, yet the school district still must pay a full teacher's salary to teach the remaining students.

And during the past year as the state's financial woes have led to cuts to all state programs, western Kansas' rural school districts have fallen far below the rate of inflation. School superintendents tell me that any further cuts will mean dropping entire programs, including industrial arts, home economics, band, art and Parents as Teachers. The educational opportunities for our youth will be restricted.

A number of constituents have asked me why the legislature doesn't remove the mill levy limits and let school districts make up the difference themselves. Many of them tell me they are willing to raise their own property taxes so they can set the school budget where they think it should be. I admire that self-help attitude, but there are two very large problems with that solution. The state's total system of taxation for all government already is weighted too heavily toward property tax. In fiscal year 2009, total property tax revenues in the state of Kansas were $4 billion, while sales and income taxes each raised only $3 billion.

I don't believe it is healthy to unbalance the tax mix even more toward property tax. Additionally, allowing local districts to raise their own taxes will lead to a very uneven playing field and unequal educational opportunities throughout the state. Median family income in Johnson County is $76,000 per year.

For most of the counties in District 118, that number is somewhere close to $40,000 per year. The residents of Johnson County are willing and more importantly able to provide a level of education that income-deficient areas of the state can never match. That creates disequalization, and that was the prime reason for the development of new school finance mechanisms in the early 1990s. Equity is a very important concept, and as we stray away from that ideal the school districts of western Kansas are the losers.

Providing a suitable educational opportunity is a constitutional responsibility of state government, and that is where the main funding should remain. The dilemma, of course, is how to provide that funding during such extraordinarily difficult times.

Don Hineman represents the 118th House District dhineman@st-tel.net