Audits of a number of Kansas public school districts has provided some valuable information for the districts and for state legislators.

Last week, the Legislative Post Audit Committee received reports on three more audits conducted by Post Audit staff. The audits revealed several areas in which school districts might be able to trim their operating cots. They were nuts-and-bolts issues like how districts manage supply purchases, arrange their academic schedules and provide cell phones for the staffs.

What the auditors didn’t find were any significant policy issues that needed to be addressed or any pattern of funds being misused or wasted.

From the districts’ standpoint, the audits may provide some valuable money-saving strategies that can be adopted not only by the districts that were studied but by other districts across the state. For legislators, the audits appear to debunk the idea that school district budgets are so out of control that they demand a complete overhaul.

Also last week, the Kansas State Board of Education formally recommended that the state increase school funding by $471 million next year. The figure would restore recent cuts in school funding and meet the requirements of school finance legislation passed after the 2005 Kansas Supreme Court ruling that the state was not adequately funding public schools.

As desirable as that funding increase would be, it’s difficult to see where the money would come from. The audit results released this week, however, may help get school districts and legislators closer to the same page. School districts should do what they can to cut costs, and legislators should quit arguing that school districts could do their jobs with far less funding than they receive.

Maybe there’s room for them to meet in the middle.