Higher ed hostage

Pitting higher education against K-12 schools? The legislators say that's not what they are doing, but their actions say otherwise.

The words and actions of Kansas legislators don’t seem to be matching up.

On one hand, lawmakers are saying they aren’t pitting higher education against K-12 schools. On the other hand, those same lawmakers are refusing to commit money to state universities until they resolve funding for K-12 schools.

Maybe they don’t see that as pitting one against the other. In reality, almost every funding measure currently before the Kansas Legislature is being held hostage to some degree by lawmakers’ inability to resolve the school finance dilemma. It’s pretty easy to see that if House Republicans stand by their pledge not to raise taxes but rather to carve more than $100 million out of the governor’s proposed budget to fund K-12 schools, there isn’t going to be much left over for anything else, including the state’s universities.

A subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee recommended that the $8.9 million the governor budgeted for the state’s post-secondary schools be eliminated because that money would have to be directed to public schools instead. Part of their rationale is that legislators are facing a Kansas Supreme Court ruling that the state’s K-12 school funding doesn’t pass constitutional muster. The constitution requires the Legislature to fund K-12 education but not higher education, some legislators argue.

What a lame excuse not to adequately fund something as vital to the state’s future as its universities, community colleges and vocational-technical schools. While the Legislature is considering state commitments, perhaps it should review the commitments made in the Higher Education Coordination Act of 1999, to increase funding for state universities and specifically to provide additional funding for faculty salaries. Of the $8.9 million in the governor’s budget, $3.3 million was earmarked for faculty salary increases.

After a sometimes-heated discussion on Monday, members of the House Appropriations Committee voted not to eliminate the university funding from the budget but to delay a decision on the funding until the misnamed “veto” session. The after-session session, which now handles much more than veto override issues, is scheduled to start April 27. That’s two weeks after the April 12 deadline set by the Kansas Supreme Court for the Legislature to address problems with the K-12 funding system. Who do we think is going to get the leftovers in this scenario?

At this rate, it seems nothing requires any significant new funding will be able to advance through the Legislature until the school finance issue is decided, and there is barely a glimmer that legislators are close to achieving that goal. They have come up with plans to raise K-12 spending by $100 million or more, but no way to raise that money. Supporters claim they can find that much through existing revenue sources and cuts in some areas. If they think that’s possible, they should get to work on it and see where it leads them.

Time’s a’wastin’, as they say. The only way to know if that plan will work is to give it a try, but legislators will have to use real numbers and serious projections of revenue growth in the state.

At this point in the game, it’s hard to believe that state university funding isn’t being held hostage and is in mortal danger of being sacrificed to last-minute efforts to throw together a K-12 school finance plan that will at least stave off a takeover of the state’s school system by the Supreme Court.