Funding risks

It's too bad that neither the farmer who needs a tractor nor the state that needs to increase school funding has enough money in the bank to just write a check to cover the cost.

Kansas Sen. Ralph Ostmeyer, R-Grinnell, wasn’t the only state legislator questioning how the state would pay for a three-year school funding plan, but the example he chose to illustrate his point didn’t seem particularly apt.

“When I go to town to buy a tractor,” he said, “I generally have my money with me. We got something (school finance plans) lined up? I don’t see how we pay for any one of these.”

The point Ostmeyer was making about the House and Senate plans to put $500 million to $660 million into Kansas schools over the next three years may be valid, but his statement also may make some Kansans wonder just how long it’s been since the senator bought a tractor.

Only the wealthiest American farmers would be able to walk into an implement dealer showroom today and write a six-figure check to buy a new tractor. The vast majority of farmers are gambling on their future prosperity – or at least solvency – to be able to finance their purchase.

Legislators supporting three-year funding plans for school finance find themselves in a similar situation. Unless they want to raise taxes or find a new revenue source like gambling, they must look at multiyear plans to raise school funding. Although plans that raise funding without tax increases are more palatable for both legislators and voters, such plans are risky in a couple of ways. Not only do they rely on future Legislatures to follow through on the current Legislature’s promise, they also depend on state revenues being sufficient to cover the tab without placing an undue burden on other areas of the budget.

It remains to be seen whether the Kansas Supreme Court would find a multiyear funding package an acceptable response to its order to raise school funding. However, it seems likely that a three-year plan that raises $500 million to $660 million in funding would be a stronger show of good faith to the court than a one-year plan that raised a third of that amount.

Although the governor and legislative leaders reportedly had been taking a bipartisan, collaborative approach to the problems of school funding, there was some indication on Friday that the era of good feeling was being tested. Some legislators returned to the mantra that the problem was not school funding, but activist judges who were overstepping their constitutional powers. Others, like Ostmeyer, were concerned about how the state could be sure it could pay for a multiyear plan.

In the best interests of the state and its children, state lawmakers should do their best not to get distracted by politics as they seek to deal with this issue. There are difficult choices to be made, and just about any solution the state arrives at will make at least some people uncomfortable.

It would be nice if the state could just whip out its pen and write a check for $500 million or $660 million to fund public education in the state. But unless they are willing to expand gambling or raise taxes, state legislators, like the farmer who needs a new tractor, probably will be forced to accept a plan that involves a little more financial risk than that.