State’s funding plan — or lack thereof — may prove essential if school districts decide to return to court

Topeka ? The Kansas Legislature’s dirty little secret may become Exhibit A if school districts, which have seen significant budget cuts, decide to sue the state.

In 2006, the Legislature approved a school finance plan in response to an order from the Kansas Supreme Court that had declared that the old school finance system was under-funded and inequitable. The new plan called for an increase in school funding of $466 million over three years.

The new plan was the result of a brutal political fight that produced a rare special legislative session. But the funding plan was eventually passed by legislators and signed into law by then-Gov. Kathleen Sebelius. The state Supreme Court OK’d it, and everyone hit the campaign trail to run for re-election.

The problem from the get-go was how to pay for the school funding increase. The Legislature and Sebelius passed no tax increase nor did they approve any new revenue stream to fund the measure; on the contrary they approved tax cuts the same year that they approved the school funding increase.

This is where the Saturday Night Live crew starts saying, “Really? You increased spending and cut taxes. Really?”

A state general fund budget profile done by the Kansas Legislative Research Department after the school finance plan was adopted showed that by last June 30, the end of fiscal year 2009, the state would have a negative ending balance of $426.6 million. The state can’t end the year in the red. Exhibit A.

At the time of the debate on the school funding plan, the rhetoric by some was that the economy was doing well and would provide the tax lift and revenues needed to sustain the funding increase. That negative $426.6 million would not happen under rosier economic assumptions, they said. Another dirty little secret is that assumptions can be built into budget profiles to make them say whatever you want them to say.

But others warned that the numbers didn’t add up. Even without the recession pummeling state revenues, they said, the tax cuts and school funding increases weren’t sustainable.