KCK superintendent tells court new funding mechanism is ineffective and is costing schools millions of dollars

In this file photo from Jan. 9, 2014, kindergarten students run around the multi-purpose room at Frank Rushton Elementary School as part of a physical education class, and behind the folded-up tables in Kansas City, Kan.

? The superintendent of the Kansas City, Kan., school district told a three-judge panel Thursday that funding cuts enacted this year, coupled with a budget freeze for the next two years, are forcing her district to cancel projects and reduce services to some of the state’s neediest students.

Gannon vs. Kansas: The Arguments

Plaintiffs: The new school funding law should be declared unconstitutional because it freezes funding for the next two years at a level the court has already said is inadequate, and because changes in the way “equalization aid” is distributed reduce funding for the state’s poorest school districts. They are asking for an injunction to prevent the state from implementing the new block grant funding system.

State of Kansas: Overall funding for education has increased and school districts now have more flexibility in how they can spend those funds. Granting the injunctions the plaintiffs seek would result in shutting down public schools.

“We know what our kids need,” Cynthia Lane said. “We’ve shown that in the past. Without funding, those additional supports for kids are hampered.”

Lane was the first witness to testify in a hearing before a three-judge district court panel in the ongoing lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of school funding in Kansas.

Plaintiffs in the case are asking the court to declare that cuts enacted by Gov. Sam Brownback and the Republican-led Legislature this year have fallen disproportionately on low-income districts such as Kansas City. They also want the court to block implementation of a new system of block grant funding for schools.

At issue is a provision of the Kansas Constitution that requires the Legislature to “make suitable provision for the finance” of public education.

The Kansas Supreme Court has previously held that those words mean school funding must be adequate to meet the basic educational outcomes expected of students, and it must be distributed equitably so that students in different districts receive similar funding, taking into account the different costs involved in educating various types of students.

Last year, the Supreme Court ordered lawmakers to increase so-called “equalization” funding for less wealthy districts because without it those districts had to levy higher property tax rates in order to generate revenues comparable to wealthier districts.

Lawmakers approved that funding last year. But after learning that the changes they made were costing more than they had anticipated, they returned this year and changed the equalization formula to reduce the overall cost and change how it was distributed among the state’s 286 districts.

They also passed a bill repealing the old per-pupil funding formula and replaced it for the next two years with a system of block grants that will provide essentially flat funding to schools for the next two years.

Lane said those changes cost the Kansas City district $8.5 million this year. And she said the new block grant funding system will reduce state aid to the district by $2.5 million a year for each of the next two years.

To absorb the $8.5 million cut this year, Lane said the district decided to delay about $1.2 million in building maintenance projects and eliminated the purchase of a new student information system used to collect student data required by the Kansas State Department of Education.

She said many buildings in the district are already over-crowded, and some elementary schools are forced to hold class in hallways, boiler rooms and other areas that are not optimal learning environments.

Lane also said the district’s board of education will face difficult decisions for next year that could involve limiting access to early-childhood education programs, after-school programs and transportation services.

Attorney Arthur Chalmers, who is defending the state in the lawsuit, pointed out that Kansas City actually received more funding this year than in the last two years and that it was able to lower its property tax mill levy.

Lane, however, said enrollment growth in Kansas City has been averaging about 500 students a year for the last four years, with many of those new students coming from overseas, sometimes with limited English language skills or prior formal education. She said the block grant formula enacted this year does not take enrollment growth into account and does not provide any additional funding for those high-needs students who are the most expensive to teach.

Chalmers said on cross-examination that total funding for the Kansas City district has gone up. But Lane said total enrollment has gone up as well. She also said most of the increased funding was for higher pension contributions, which the district cannot use for operational costs.

Chalmers then called Deputy Education Commissioner Dale Dennis to the stand to describe how the Department of Education calculates how much money each district is authorized to spend each year.

After nearly two hours of testimony, Chalmers made the point that under the new funding plan schools are receiving more state aid and they have more flexibility to transfer money between various funds.

But Presiding Judge Franklin Theis asked at the end of his testimony for Dennis to provide spreadsheets that would show which districts received additional equalization aid under the new law and which ones received less. Theis also asked for spreadsheets showing how much districts are receiving for operational costs if the additional pension contributions are subtracted.

The hearing is scheduled to resume Friday morning with the plaintiffs cross-examining Dennis. Plaintiffs are also expected to present another witness, Hutchinson school district superintendent Shelly Kiblinger.

The state has also listed Kansas Chamber President Mike O’Neal, a former Kansas House Speaker, as a potential witness. O’Neal served last year on a special task force appointed by the Legislature to recommend ways schools could be more efficient with their budgets.