Gov. Sam Brownback chairs a meeting of the State Finance Council, which agreed Monday to partially fund the Wichita school district's request for additional money to absorb an influx of refugee students.

Topeka ? Gov. Sam Brownback and legislative leaders on Monday approved spending about $4.2 million in additional money for school districts to cover certain extraordinary needs, including $366,804 to help the Wichita school district absorb an influx of refugee children.

The approvals by the State Finance Council represent substantially less than those districts requested.

Wichita in particular had asked for $980,000 to cover the cost of refugees that have been pouring into the district, including 92 just since last fall. The district wanted to hire eight additional classroom teachers, eight paraprofessionals, two counselors and a number of specialized English language specialists to work with the children.

Dian Gjerstad, who lobbies for Wichita schools, said many of them have never been in a school setting before, and most have extremely limited English language skills.

Gov. Sam Brownback chairs a meeting of the State Finance Council, which agreed Monday to partially fund the Wichita school district's request for additional money to absorb an influx of refugee students.

“The reason why we applied for this is because the mix of our students is changing,” she said. When you have regular enrollment students who can be in a regular classroom, that’s one thing. But the refugee students and the other students who are coming in who have to be in a newcomer classroom — they’re in a separate classroom and receiving intensive language services.”

Gjerstad said that’s why the Wichita district asked for funding for staff. “Because we know we need to serve these students to give them intensive language supports because they’re going to be citizens of our country and we want them to be very successful.”

Wichita is seeing more of an influx of refugees, primarily from war-torn countries in Africa and the Middle East, because there are two social service agencies there that work specifically to relocate refugee populations.

District officials said that in addition to the 92 refugee students who have arrived since the district’s last enrollment count, they are expecting another 145-150 students over the coming year.

Those who come receive a small amount of federal assistance for relocation costs and to help them find employment quickly, said Lewis Kimsey, state refugee coordinator for the Kansas Department of Children and Families. But he said that money does not cover the additional cost to public schools for educating the children of refugee families.

Kimsey said once each year, state departments of education can apply for what’s called “school impact aid” for refugees, but the Kansas State Department of Education hasn’t applied for that since the early 2000s, and it is now too late for Kansas to apply for funds this year.

Sen. Ty Masterson, R-Andover, who chairs the Senate Ways and Means Committee, said he believes it should be the federal government’s job to pay the additional education costs of refugees.

“Because it appears to me this situation has been put on the Kansas taxpayer without their knowledge or even the knowledge of their representatives,” Masterson said.

“It would be nice if Congress would treat the whole family … K-12 dollars, plus the relocation money,” Gjerstad said.

The funding the Finance Council approved represents the additional amount of block grant money Wichita would have received for the 92 students who have already arrived. But the council declined to authorize any additional money for the expected future influx.

The Legislature set aside $12.3 million this year for districts that had extraordinary increases in enrollment, declines in property value, or other special circumstances that affect their general fund budgets. The money came from reducing every school district’s block grant this year by 0.4 percent.

The process has been criticized by some school advocates who say it requires school officials to take time off and travel to Topeka to request money that many think should have been part of their base state funding.

But Brownback defended the process, telling reporters afterward, “It’s the process set by the Legislature and I think it’s a good way for extraordinary needs to be addressed. Under the prior system, there wasn’t a way to address it. And there are a number of school districts that, under the old system, would have lost funding.”

In addition to Wichita’s request, the council authorized allocating just under $3 million to 16 school districts that have lost 5 percent or more of their assessed property valuation in the last year; $401,533 to seven districts whose enrollment has grown more than 2 percent; and $496,134 to three small districts that were forced to refund property tax money to oil companies because of lawsuits over the valuation of oil and gas wells.