Lawrence school leaders need legislative help or they will have to ask voters for a tax increase in April.

The situation has flummoxed Lawrence Superintendent Randy Weseman.

“It seems crazy to force a school district to continue to raise taxes in order to keep the money coming in from the previous year,” Weseman said Tuesday.

Not only crazy, Weseman added, but confusing, and possibly costly.

As part of the $466 million, three-year school funding increase approved last year, the Legislature allowed 18 districts to increase local taxes for teacher salaries and other expenses to compensate for higher housing costs. Lawrence was one of those districts.

To qualify for those funds, the district had to increase its local property taxes to the maximum allowed rate, which is 30 percent of the district’s general fund.

The law, however, also increases that maximum rate again this year to 31 percent of the district’s general revenue fund.

To be able to continue collecting those cost-of-living revenues for teacher salaries, the district must raise its local property taxes again. To do that, it must ask the voters’ permissionin the April election. If voters reject the tax increase, the district will lose its cost-of-living funds.

The tax increase would be 0.7 of a mill, Weseman said. A mill represents a $1 tax on every $1,000 of property valuation.

Weseman said the district doesn’t want to raise the local property taxes, but it must in order to get those cost-of-living funds, which total nearly $1.3 million.

That is, unless the Legislature can change the law.

Several key education senators said they are working on it.

“There are a lot of school districts in the same boat,” said Sen. John Vratil, R-Leawood.

Vratil said he’s hoping for a quick fix, adding, “If it gets bogged down, it will increase the time and expense for school districts to access money for education.”

He said one way to fix the problem is to eliminate the requirement that districts increase their local property taxes to maintain the cost-of-living funds.

Sen. Jean Schodorf, R-Wichita, and chairwoman of the Senate Education Committee, said she would have a hearing on the bill as soon as it is drafted.