Topeka ? A group of school officials have proposed a new school finance formula designed to satisfy a preliminary district court order that found the current system of funding schools in Kansas unconstitutional.

The plan would add $1 billion to the existing $2.6 billion in annual state aid to school districts. It was drafted by the Salina and Dodge City school districts, which sued the state in 1999, and others in the Schools for Fair Funding coalition.

Hays Superintendent Fred Kaufman said the plan addresses both fairness in school funding and giving districts enough money to provide a suitable education to all students.

The package would increase base state aid per pupil to $5,033 from its current $3,863, as well as boost aid for special education, transportation and at-risk programs aimed at helping improve the performance of poor and minority students on standardized tests.

Kaufman said legislators should give the plan serious consideration, instead of looking at putting more money into the current school finance formula, which Shawnee County District Judge Terry Bullock said was broken. He later admonished the Legislature to “just go fix it.”

“I would hope they would look at it from a perspective that there is a real need for this,” Kaufman said of lawmakers.

The school districts drafted the proposal after the Dodge City and Salina superintendents received a written challenge from Senate President Dave Kerr, R-Hutchinson, seeking a solution.

However, legislators will be loathe to approve the suggested plan, which would increase the state sales tax to 6.3 percent from 5.3 percent; place a 15 percent surcharge on personal and corporate income taxes; and return the statewide property tax mill levy to 35 mills, where it was for the 1996-97 school year, from its current 20 mills.

The Schools for Fair Funding coalition represents 15 school districts and about 50,000 students across Kansas. Members are: Arkansas City, Augusta, Derby, Dodge City, El Dorado, Emporia, Fort Scott, Great Bend, Hays, Independence, Leavenworth, Manhattan, Newton, Salina, and Winfield.

Most of the districts in the coalition were involved in a school finance lawsuit in Bullock’s court in 1991, which led to adoption of the current formula. The arguments then — as now — were that the districts received a disproportionately small amount of funding in relation to their actual costs and needs.

Gloria Davis, the superintendent in Dodge City, said legislators should act soon to avoid court-ordered changes in school funding, which is happening in Arkansas and other states.

Davis said the coalition’s plan is about helping all students, not a struggle between big and small districts.

“No one is going to take anything away from any other district,” Davis said.

Numerous plans for rewriting the school finance formula, or tinkering with specific provisions, are meandering through the Legislature. Most, however, involve raising additional revenue, which will be a tough task in an election year for all 165 legislators.

Senate Education Committee Chairman Dwayne Umbarger said the level of activity should neither raise nor dash hopes that something meaningful will occur before the session’s end in early May. He said the Schools for Fair Funding proposal would get a hearing on March 4.

Umbarger, R-Thayer, said increasing education spending will be difficult, despite Bullock’s ruling, because of the political nature of the debate and the election cycle. Also, some Republicans want to wait for the Kansas Supreme Court to review Bullock’s ruling.

“I still think the day of reckoning will be in 2005,” he said. “Even with an expedited appeal, it’s going to be the first of the year before the court hands down any onerous decision.”

Umbarger said some legislators would like to pursue a package of between $50 million and $100 million for education, which was part of the drive behind a recent failed attempt to raise taxes on liquor.