New school finance plan draws guarded support

Marysville school superintendent Bill Mullins testifies Tuesday in favor of a bill that would phase in a new school finance formula over the next three years.

? A proposal by one of the Kansas Legislature’s most conservative members to remake the state’s school finance formula drew a surprising mix of reactions Tuesday, with school districts and other education groups offering cautious support.

Two conservative lobbyists came out against the bill, and the leading Democrat in the Kansas Senate expressed strong reservations.

But almost everyone who testified during the bill’s first committee hearing in the Senate Education Committee Tuesday expressed keen interest in at least some of its concepts and indicated that it could be a framework to guide future discussions.

“I’ve been real torn on this bill and gone back and forth between neutral and proponent several times,” said Bill Mullins, superintendent of the Marysville school district in north-central Kansas.

In the end, he said he came down in favor of the bill, “because I think by passing this bill, it allows that conversation to proceed faster than if we were neutral.”

If the bill is approved, Marysville district would be one of the first six school districts to come under the new formula starting next year. Those six districts, which also include McPherson, Kansas City, Concordia, Hugoton and Blue Valley, have all been designated as “public innovative” districts, which are allowed to exempt themselves from most state laws and regulations governing schools in exchange for adopting plans to improve overall student achievement.

No local-tax cap

The bill, which was crafted largely by Senate Education Committee Chairman Steve Abrams, R-Arkansas City, would reinstate a type of enrollment-based funding system similar to the one that lawmakers voted to repeal just one week ago.

But instead of assigning “weights” to different categories of students — a system that gives districts more money for harder-to-educate students — Abrams’ bill offers three other types of funding in addition to per-pupil funding.

Those additional funding streams would be based on the poverty rate and population sparsity in each district, as determined by the U.S. Census Bureau, as well as a “success” index that would reward schools for graduating students who go on to higher education, the military or good-paying jobs.

It would also continue the existing 20-mill statewide property tax that funds a portion of the education budget, and it would allow local districts to continue raising additional money through local property taxes. But there would be no cap on how much local districts could raise through that tax.

However, under certain conditions, if wealthier districts like Burlington and Blue Valley go over a certain amount in their local taxes, they would have to levy additional taxes — what some have called a “luxury tax” — with the proceeds of that going back to the state to help fund equalization aid for less wealthy districts.

‘Starting point’

“It is an intriguing starting point to discuss what happens next in school funding,” said Mark Tallman, a lobbyist for the Kansas Association of School Boards. “There are obviously some elements that I think very much line up with things our association is interested in. There are a host of unknowns.”

But Dave Trabert, president of the conservative think tank Kansas Policy Institute, testified against the bill, saying that while portions of the bill looked attractive, it does not address the issue of adequacy of school funding, which the Kansas Supreme Court has said is a requirement.

“The role of the Legislature is to provide the funding that is needed to provide the education to meet the outcomes,” Trabert said. “But if there is research (to support the funding levels in the bill), it has not been made part of the bill. How did we arrive at the amount per-pupil for poverty, how did we arrive at the amount for enrollment, and so forth.”

Walt Chappell, a former member of the Kansas State Board of Education, also testified against the bill, saying it was “not ready for prime time.”

Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley of Topeka said after the hearing that it appeared the bill could result in a large shift in education funding away from the state and onto local property taxes. And he said the lack of any limit on local property taxes would only benefit wealthier districts.

“If you take the cap off, that is only going to serve to disequalize whatever formula you have and will very likely cause another court challenge,” Hensley said.

The committee plans to continue the hearing Wednesday.