Topeka ? Most Lawrence-area lawmakers received failing marks on an anti-tax group’s legislative report card.

But Rep. Barbara Ballard, D-Lawrence, said Wednesday she was proud of her 12.5 percent score given by the Kansas Taxpayers Network.

She said a low score from the Wichita-based group meant she was doing a good job representing her constituents who want sound schools.

“I don’t answer to the Taxpayers Network,” Ballard said. “I answer to the people who send me to the Legislature. My constituents make it clear they are willing to raise taxes, especially if it goes to schools.”

The Taxpayers Network ranked legislators on more than a dozen votes. The officials received high marks if they voted against tax increases, against increased school funding, for spending cuts and in favor of the proposed constitutional amendment, which eventually failed, that was aimed at prohibiting the Kansas Supreme Court from ordering the Legislature to make appropriations.

Extra credit was given to those who have co-sponsored the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, or TABOR, a legislative proposal that would restrict spending and tax increases. Legislators earning more than 75 percent were considered “taxpayer friends.”

• Kansas Taxpayers Network vote ratings

Rep. Tom Sloan, R-Lawrence, was at 18.8 percent. He dismissed the group’s ranking, saying the philosophy behind it was “simplistic and demeaning to the citizens of the state.”

“My view of government and elected officials is that our role is to provide essential and desired services to the people of Kansas.

“It’s easy to say that taxes are too high, but the tax groups don’t say what benefits they want to do away with,” Sloan said.

Karl Peterjohn, executive director of the Taxpayers Network, defended the ranking system as “providing citizens with a way of evaluating their legislators on fiscal issues.”

Peterjohn said spending on schools was too high and that Kansas ranked low in getting its appropriation to school dollars into classroom instruction.

“Kansans feel like they already are over-taxed,” he said.