New Kansas school equalization plan would help ‘hold harmless’ wealthier districts

A new school equalization plan is in the works that would simplify the formula and help “hold harmless” wealthier districts, which would lose millions in state aid under other proposals.

Sen. Ty Masterson, an Andover Republican and Senate Ways and Means Committee chairman, said he hoped to have a hearing on a new plan this week.

Unless an equalization formula is in place by June 30, the Kansas Supreme Court ruled last month, public schools won’t open for the 2016-17 school year. After this week, lawmakers go on a monthlong break.

Johnson County lawmakers had bristled at recent plans to return to the state’s former equalization formula. It shifted state aid funds from wealthier to poorer districts, mainly adjusting property taxes.

A bill advanced last week by the Ways and Means Committee was being debated on the Senate floor Monday when it was sent back to committee.

After that, Masterson said a new proposal was in the works to make sure districts don’t lose funding next year. Details weren’t available Monday.

“We’re going to try to figure out a way to make districts whole for the next school year,” said Sen. Jim Denning, an Overland Park Republican, who recommended sending the bill back to committee. “It appears we can do this without running afoul of the court’s equalization ruling.”

Several Johnson County legislators had suggested that a remedy to the court’s decision should hold wealthier districts harmless. Under the Senate proposal debated briefly Monday, Shawnee Mission, Olathe and Blue Valley districts collectively would have lost about $10 million in state aid. That could have required property tax increases to make up the funds.

Masterson told lawmakers that the plan on the Senate floor Monday reshuffled funds among districts without increasing aid and was a proper remedy, as suggested by the court.

“This is in its purest form a response to the court,” Masterson said about the Senate proposal. “The courts have a gun to the heads of the schoolchildren on closing the schools.”

Besides the complaint that a return to the former equalization formula is costly to some districts, some lawmakers say the state’s high court won’t be satisfied unless a plan includes additional funding.

Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley, a Topeka Democrat, said the Legislature must address the inequity created by the current school financing plan. School districts were also shorted by $54 million in 2015.

Without additional funds, the formula won’t satisfy the court, he said.

Hensley objected to Masterson’s “gun to the head” comment. The gun, he said, is to the heads of lawmakers, who need to satisfy the Supreme Court ruling.

“We caused this problem, and that’s why the court wants us to clean it up,” Hensley said.

Last year, the Legislature put in place a block-grant formula for two years until a new school financing formula could be written. The Supreme Court ruled in February that the block-grant plan didn’t properly equalize funding among districts.

This story was originally published March 21, 2016 at 6:50 PM with the headline "New Kansas school equalization plan would help ‘hold harmless’ wealthier districts."