Topeka ? The state took the legal dispute about school finance to the Kansas Supreme Court on Monday, filing a notice of appeal of a district judge’s conclusion that the existing aid formula is unconstitutional.

The one-sentence document, filed by a lawyer hired by Atty. Gen. Phill Kline, effectively asks the seven-member high court to review the case.

Shawnee County District Judge Terry Bullock, in a preliminary order issued Dec. 2, said that the state’s 1992 school finance law was unconstitutionally flawed.

Ruling in a 1999 lawsuit by parents and administrators in the Dodge City and Salina districts, Bullock said the formula prescribed by the law yielded too little aid to meet the needs of all Kansas students and distributed the aid unfairly. He gave the state until July 1 to revise the formula, and he plans to issue a final order on that date.

Trial judges’ orders normally cannot be appealed until they are made final or a judge agrees to release the case. Bullock has twice declined to make his order final or allow for an appeal.

But a new law, which took effect Thursday, created a special exception allowing the state to appeal Bullock’s preliminary order.

Kansas spends about $2.6 billion a year on elementary and secondary education. The plaintiff school districts last week filed a proposed remedy that recommends an additional $1.03 billion in aid to districts.

Bullock has given the state until April 1 to respond.

The State Board of Education also is named as a defendant in the 1999 lawsuit. A notice of appeal on the board’s behalf will probably be filed later this week, the board’s attorney said Monday.

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