When it comes to unfunded government mandates, it doesn’t get much worse than what the state of Kansas is doing to 295 public school districts across the state.

On Tuesday, for the third consecutive month, the state decided to postpone aid payments to local school districts. It decided instead to keep that $200 million so that it could meet its own payroll and pay other bills on time.

State officials made that decision with full knowledge that nearly 100 school districts will be forced to violate state cash management laws in order to make their own payrolls and pay their own bills. State budget director Duane Goossen said the state hopes to give school districts half of what’s due them by the end of the week but doesn’t expect to be able to pay the rest until the end of January. “It depends on how fast money comes in,” he said. “These bills will be paid. It’s just that we don’t have the cash right now to do it.”

This is trickle-down at its worst. School districts already have dipped deeply into their reserve funds to cover their expenses after four rounds of cuts to their state aid. Now, many apparently will be forced to dig into accounts that legally aren’t supposed to be used for salaries in order to meet their own payrolls.

In the meantime, by delaying the school aid payments, the state will be able to meet its own $25 million payroll and make $35 million in aid payments to community colleges and $24 million in Medicaid payments on time.

Those expenditures are important, but where does that leave the schools? The state can make its own payroll and apparently is willing to look the other way while districts dip into funds legally reserved for capital projects or other uses to pay their own employees. At least most districts will be able to find the money somewhere, which is more than the state is able — or at least willing — to do.

This is no way to run a government. Maybe this was the best decision the state could make right now, but it should send a clear message to state legislators that this situation cannot be allowed to continue. While legislators are talking about raising taxes to cover a new highway program, not to mention the debt they are running up on the never-ending capitol renovation project, they need to remember their constitutional duty to fund public education in the state. That means not only approving reasonable funding for those schools but also making sure they are able to actually write the checks to make good on that promise.