Topeka ? The Kansas Court of Appeals today refused to block the use of sales tax revenue by Johnson County schools.

School officials in neighboring Wyandotte County filed a lawsuit challenging the quarter-cent sales tax, arguing the levy created school-funding inequities that put students in Wyandotte County at an unfair competitive disadvantage.

They were seeking a court-ordered temporary halt to distribution of revenues from the sales tax until the lawsuit was decided.

Johnson County District Court rejected a temporary court order stopping distribution of the revenues, and the appellate court agreed with that decision.

But the appellate court didn’t rule on whether the sales tax was unfair to Wyandotte County students, and sent that issue back to the lower court for further hearings.

In writing the unanimous opinion, Judge Richard Greene said the plaintiffs failed to show standing in the case and how use of sales tax would put Wyandotte County schools at more of a competitive disadvantage than elsewhere in Kansas.

The appellate court said previous court rulings found disparities in school funding were allowable under the Kansas Constitution, but noted the final word on that matter will be made by the Kansas Supreme Court. A case pending before the high court challenges the state’s entire school financing method.