Critics say Kansas school equity fix won’t pass court muster

The mood got a bit testy among lawmakers Thursday during the debate on a school funding fix, a topic that will still be front and center when lawmakers return from a break at the end of April.

The bill won in a landslide in both the House and Senate, but skeptics are many. Even after a spring cooling-off period, emotions could run high again.

More than a few lawmakers and an attorney for school districts suing the state feel certain the Kansas Supreme Court will spurn the new school equalization plan, sending the Legislature back to the drawing board.

Alan Rupe, attorney for the districts in Gannon v. Kansas, called the Republican-led plan “almost a sleight of hand” that doesn’t fix anything.

“And it opens the door for greater equity differences,” Rupe said.

“The districts that are disadvantaged remain disadvantaged, and the districts that have access to greater property wealth would have access to more,” he said.

The Kansas high court ruled in February that the state’s school funding law didn’t fairly distribute aid to poor districts. Without a constitutionally valid plan in place by June 30, the court said, public schools would not open for the 2016-2017 school year.

Republican leadership in the House and Senate said the equalization formula in the bill, which is on its way to the governor, is constitutionally valid and provides districts the budget stability they requested. It has a hold-harmless provision so districts don’t lose aid next year.

It also narrows the gap between poorer and wealthier districts, they said.

But Rupe said it does the opposite.

For one, he said, it applies an equalization formula to districts’ “local option budgets” in a way that may allow some districts to raise more local money for education. That’s a big disadvantage to poor districts, he said.

“For Johnson County, raising the mill levy is going to be an easy task,” he said. “Drive 10 miles and try to do that in Kansas City, Kan. It is absolutely impossible in a poor area with poor property wealth and low average incomes to have the political will or ability to raise the money,” he said.

Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley, a Topeka Democrat, is one of the bill’s harshest critics, and he filed a protest to be published in the Senate journal.

Without additional spending, he said, the same pot of money is used for the plan’s hold-harmless provision. That freezes equalization payments rather than reducing inequities, he said.

“The bill is the product of politics and not a consideration of the actual cost to educate Kansas schoolchildren,” Hensley said in his protest.

The court’s threat to close public schools continues to rankle many lawmakers. Others say the blame lies with legislators and their funding decisions, not the courts.

While the Senate debate Thursday was decorous, the two sides clashed in the House.

Rep. Marc Rhoades, a Newton Republican, told House members the idea that the state can equalize school district financing is “ridiculous” — particularly because the courts will continue to find inequity, he said.

“You know what that sounds like to me?” he asked. “Socialism.”

Rep. Jim Ward, a Wichita Democrat, also didn’t mince words with House colleagues.

“This is a horrible bill,” Ward said. “The contents are horrible. The process was even worse.”

Ward charged that Republicans put the proposal together haphazardly, saying they were “playing Russian roulette with our schools.”

And when Rep. John Whitmer, a Wichita Republican, criticized Democrats for failing to offer a solution — saying Republicans had done the work and presented a remedy — House Minority Leader Tom Burroughs got loud at the microphone. Burroughs is a Kansas City, Kan., Democrat.

“You, sir, are an ideologist, a politician,” said Burroughs, pointing at Whitmer.

That brought lawmakers to their feet, some rushing to calm Burroughs down, and a reminder from Rep. Peggy Mast, presiding over the debate, that legislators aren’t allowed to call each other out.

“I will stand for children,” said Burroughs, who apologized.

This story was originally published March 25, 2016 at 5:51 PM with the headline "Critics say Kansas school equity fix won’t pass court muster."