TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) - Republican Gov. Sam Brownback is calling on the Kansas Supreme Court to show “appropriate deference” in reviewing a new education funding law meant to keep the state’s public schools open, saying it resulted from a “delicate legislative compromise.”
Brownback announced Thursday that he signed the measure the day before as expected. The new law, set to take effect in July, redistributes $83 million of the more than $4 billion in aid promised to the state’s 286 local districts for the 2016-17 school year.
The new law is a response to a Supreme Court ruling in February that the state wasn’t giving its poorest districts their fair share of education funding. The justices threatened to shut down schools statewide if lawmakers didn’t act by June 30 to fix the problems the court identified.
The new law attempts to comply with the court order without increasing the state’s overall spending - and without reducing any district’s promised aid. The bill makes technical changes in how state dollars are distributed, but most districts won’t see any change; 23 will see small increases due to tapping an existing state emergency fund.
“The solution that emerged in this bill is most certainly the result of a delicate legislative compromise - a compromise that I respectfully endorse and that the court should review with appropriate deference,” Brownback said in a statement released by his office, also dated Wednesday.
The Legislature’s Republican supermajorities moved with unusual speed to pass the legislation. Separate but identical House and Senate bills containing the plan were introduced March 22 and won final legislative approval two days later.
Attorney General Derek Schmidt submitted a copy of the new law to the court Thursday, along with more than 770 pages of material compiled by lawmakers, and asked the justices for an expedited review.
The court’s ruling in February came in a lawsuit filed in 2010 by the Dodge City, Hutchinson, Wichita and Kansas City, Kansas, districts. None of them will see an increase in state aid under the bill, and their attorneys argued that the state needed to boost its overall spending on schools to comply with the Supreme Court decision.
The new law also allows local districts to increase local property taxes to supplement their state funds - and critics say that will help wealthier districts to get further ahead of poorer ones in their educational programs.
“It was a giant game of smoke and mirrors that did nothing,” said John Robb, a Newton attorney representing the four districts.
___
Online:
Information about school funding law: https://bit.ly/1RzGMbV .
Brownback’s statement: https://1.usa.gov/1MVUkCJ .
___
Follow John Hanna on Twitter at https://twitter.com/apjdhanna .
Please read our comment policy before commenting.