Topeka ? Republican House leaders Tuesday released a school-finance plan that would spend $28.4 million from unidentified sources and allow local school districts to increase property taxes by $62.6 million.

Critics said the plan’s heaviest burden would fall on low-income Kansans.

Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, a Democrat, didn’t find much in the proposal to like; education advocates scoffed; and school administrators shrugged their shoulders.

“It is what it is,” Lawrence public schools Supt. Randy Weseman said. “It’s a tax increase whether it comes from the state or the local districts.”

Weseman said the proposal followed the trend of Kansas legislators pushing more of the funding responsibility for schools onto local school boards.

But House Speaker Doug Mays, R-Topeka, said the plan would avoid a statewide tax increase while helping schools, and would buy some time until the Kansas Supreme Court ruled on a lower court decision that declared the state school finance system unconstitutional.

“This is a stopgap proposal that gets us from here to the next session” in 2005, Mays said.

A statewide tax increase “would be extremely unwise and damaging to our economy,” Mays said, but giving local districts the ability to increase taxes would allow them to tailor their budgets to the districts’ needs.

The plan’s finances

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Under the plan, $28.4 million in state funds would be spent to increase funding of programs for at-risk students by $25.4 million, programs for students who are learning English by $2 million and teacher mentoring by $1 million.

But Mays and other House GOP leaders refused to say where the $28.4 million would come from in a tight state budget, though Mays said the funds wouldn’t be taken away from a proposed 3 percent pay raise for state employees.

The plan also authorizes local school boards to assess the statewide 20-mill levy for schools on the first $20,000 of assessed value on residential property, which currently is exempt. That revenue would then be used to help pay for special education.

Such a proposal would fall heaviest on low-income Kansans who would see their property taxes increase at a greater percentage than people in more expensive homes, Democratic critics of the plan said.

In addition, the plan would include a new cost-of-living adjustment, in which 16 wealthy districts, including Lawrence, would be able to increase local property taxes to make up for the high costs in those districts.

Lawrence public schools would receive about $2.5 million in additional funding in the new plan. Increased spending in at-risk and bilingual programs, abolishing the $20,000 exemption and increasing the city’s mill levy for the cost-of-living adjustment would fund the increase.

Quick slam

Shortly after Mays and other GOP leaders held a news conference to unveil their plan, Sebelius had an impromptu news conference.

“I’m alarmed by the fact there is no identified resource for the statewide funding, and there is about a $64 million property tax increase,” Sebelius said.

She said recognition by the legislative leaders that funding should be increased for at-risk and bilingual programs was encouraging and showed some “common ground.”

But overall, Sebelius said the plan relied too much on local property tax increases, which would further disequalize school funding between property-rich and property-poor districts. Unequal funding of schools was a major point of District Court Judge Terry Bullock’s ruling that Kansas schools were unconstitutionally underfunded and the distribution of funds shortchanged minority students. The state has appealed the decision to the Kansas Supreme Court.

Sebelius previously proposed increases in state income and sales taxes, and a 2-mill increase in property taxes to fund a $304 million increase over three years. But Republican majorities in the House and Senate rejected that proposal.

Lawrence legislators, Republican and Democrat, were cool to the House GOP leadership plan.

“The majority of education funding should come from the state, and to shift programs to the local level, I believe, disequalizes educational opportunities in Kansas,” Rep. Tom Sloan, R-Lawrence, said.

Rep. Barbara Ballard, D-Lawrence, said she was concerned about where the money was going to come from in the budget.

“That really bothers me. Where are we going to take that from? We know that existing budgets are really tight,” she said.

Hearings this week

Movement on the bill is expected this week as the House Education Committee starts hearings on Thursday.

Mark Tallman, a lobbyist for the Kansas Association of School Boards, said the plan “lets the Legislature off the hook,” from making tough funding decisions.

John Martellaro of Lenexa, president of Kansas Families United for Public Education, panned the proposal.

“Too many politicians are all too willing to promise citizens and voters a free-lunch fantasy,” Martellaro said. “Spending more money without raising taxes sounds like a shell game based on Enron-style accounting. If the leadership wants public support for this proposal, they need to provide some factual specifics on how they expect to pay for it.”

Further details on the plan can be seen at www.kshousegop.org.