Topeka ? School districts and taxpayers across the state will be watching closely Friday as the Kansas Supreme Court hears oral arguments in one portion of the ongoing school finance lawsuit.

The case of Gannon vs. Kansas was originally filed in 2010 by a coalition of school districts called Schools For Fair Funding, which includes the Kansas City, Wichita, Hutchinson and Dodge City school districts, all of which have high percentages of students living in poverty and students from non-English speaking households.

Originally, they argued that school funding cuts enacted in the wake of the Great Recession by Democratic Gov. Mark Parkinson were unconstitutional and violated the remedy plan that had been agreed to in an earlier finance case, Montoy vs. Kansas.

Specifically, they argued that overall funding was inadequate, and that certain kinds of “equalization aid” for poor districts had been cut off entirely, resulting in poor districts having to levy higher local property taxes than wealthier districts to generate comparable amounts of money.

Since then, the case has mushroomed in complexity. Plaintiffs now argue that funding has been reduced even further under Republican Gov. Sam Brownback’s administration. And more recently, they argue that the complete overhaul of school finance enacted during the 2015 legislative session is also unconstitutional.

This will be the second time the case has been before the Supreme Court. In March 2014, the court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs on the equity portion of the suit and ordered the state to increase equalization aid.

But it sent the larger adequacy portion of the case back to a three-judge district court panel to be reconsidered using a different legal standard for measuring adequacy. It also directed the panel to monitor legislative actions to determine whether the state had solved the equity issues.

Initially, the 2014 Legislature complied with the Supreme Court order, increasing equalization aid by what was then estimated at $130 million.

But that aid ended up costing substantially more, and in 2015, lawmakers enacted sweeping changes. They abolished the base funding formula entirely and replaced it with a system of block grants for two years, and they overhauled the way equalization aid to poorer districts is calculated.

The district court panel reviewed those changes earlier this year, and in June ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, saying the overall adequacy of funding and the overhaul of equalization aid are both unconstitutional.

The court also ordered, among other things, that certain provisions of the new equalization formula be stricken entirely from the statutes, effectively reinstating the old formula. But that order was put on hold pending the Supreme Court’s review.

The issue before the Supreme Court Friday involves only the change in equalization aid, a relatively small part of the case compared to the adequacy portion, which could involve upward of $500 million a year in additional school funding.

Plaintiffs argue that lawmakers effectively cut nearly $54 million in equalization aid and changed the formula in such a way that some larger districts, including Lawrence, took big cuts, while others had their equalization aid cut off entirely.

Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt’s office is appealing that decision. In the equity portion of the case, Schmidt’s office argues that the trial court lacked authority to review the Legislature’s actions this year; that it erred in concluding that funds were not being distributed equitably; and that the remedy ordered by the panel was unconstitutional.