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AP: Brownback outlines plan to overhaul school funding
Published 12/15/2011 in News
TOPEKA (AP) — An education funding plan outlined Wednesday by Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback appears to benefit rural schools most, promising modest increases in aid for dozens of districts with fewer than 500 students while providing no additional dollars for the state's largest urban districts.
Brownback's administration said the plan will give local school boards additional spending flexibility and unfettered power to increase property taxes. It also said that no school district will see its overall state aid decrease when the new formula takes effect in the 2013-14 school year and promised the state will actually provide a modest increase in its overall base aid to schools.
An analysis by The Associated Press of data supplied by the governor's office showed that 182 school districts would see their funding increase under Brownback's plan, with increases capped at 6 percent. The largest is Lansing, in Leavenworth County, with about 2,600 students, but more than half have fewer than 500 students.
The remaining 104 school districts, which aren't projected to lose funds but don't gain new state dollars, account for 75 percent of the state's public school students, according to the analysis. They include the 33 districts with the largest student populations, including Wichita, Kansas City, Wichita and Olathe, Blue Valley and Shawnee Mission in Johnson County.
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Associated Press Landon Fulmer, policy director for Gov. Sam Brownback, briefs the State Board of Education on Brownback's plan for overhauling how the state finances its public schools, Wednesday in Topeka.
The numbers confirmed the initial impressions of some educators who saw the details Wednesday, when Landon Fulmer, the governor's policy director, outlined the plan for members of the State Board of Education. Several said the plan favored rural districts.
"They seem to be somewhat the winners on this today," said Julie Ford, Topeka schools superintendent.
Still, even with Brownback's commitment to preventing reductions for 2013-14, future spending would be tied to the number of students — meaning state aid would decrease over time if a district's enrollment dropped.
And not all small districts would see additional dollars under Brownback's plan. Twenty-nine districts where funding stays steady have fewer than 500 students, and the administration said additional dollars are targeted toward poorer districts.
The plan would scrap a two-decade-old practice of linking some of districts' spending authority specifically to the number of students at risk of failing or the number who don't speak English well.
The Republican governor said in a statement that the changes will make the state's school finance formula more transparent, focus more dollars in classrooms and end a "cycle of litigation" over how more than $3 billion in education funds are distributed. His administration also believes it will help with goals to increase fourth-graders' scores on standardized reading tests and to see that more high school graduates are ready for work or college.
Brownback dropped a proposal his administration had floated to allow counties to increase their sales taxes to help support schools, which found little support, partly because some of the local funds would flow across county lines.
The governor said the current formula, enacted in 1992 and revised in 2005 and 2006, is broken. State school board member Ken Willard, a Hutchinson Republican, said the plan strikes him as fairer and easier to understand.
"What's not to like?" he said after Fulmer's briefing. "It seems to me it provides a really good base from which to go forward."
The state has been sued by 32 students, along with their parents and guardians, and the Dodge City, Hutchinson, Kansas City and Wichita school districts. They argue state funding is inadequate and that the money is distributed unfairly.
But Kansas House Minority Leader Paul Davis, a Lawrence Democrat, said he isn't sold on a "total overhaul."
State Democratic Party Chairwoman Joan Wagnon said: "The current formula doesn't need to be fixed, just funded. Don't waste precious time tampering with something that isn't broken."
In a new projection Wednesday, the administration said under its plan, schools' base state aid would increase about 2 percent for the 2013-14 school year, or about $45 million, a little higher than previously stated. That contrasts with a nearly 6 percent decrease approved by legislators this year at Brownback's urging to help balance the state budget.
State Board of Education member Walt Chappell, a Wichita Republican, expressed doubt about the state's ability to keep its promise that no districts will see funding reductions, saying, "The economy is going to dictate a lot of this."
But other educators questioned whether holding districts harmless is enough, suggesting current levels of funding aren't adequate. Some skeptics said the plan wouldn't adjust districts' funding if the percentage of students with poor English skills or who are at risk of failing increased.
The proposal to remove current state limits on school boards' power to raise property taxes is crucial, Fulmer told the state board. Critics of the idea worry that wealthy districts will move far ahead of poorer ones in the education they offer.
Fulmer said the formula is designed so that a wealthy district's local tax increase could trigger more state aid to poorer districts.
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