Editorial: School inequity

Thursday’s court ruling on school equity puts another huge issue on this year’s legislative agenda.

So much for legislative leaders’ hopes for a short, relatively noncontroversial, session.

The Kansas Legislature has been speeding toward passage of a budget for fiscal year 2017, which starts July 1. On Thursday, the Kansas Supreme Court brought that process to an abrupt halt with a ruling that the state’s current school finance system doesn’t meet constitutional requirements. Specifically, the court said that “the inequities found to exist” among school districts in the state “have not yet been cured.”

The court set a June 30 deadline for legislators to address the problems. If they do not, the court said, “no constitutionally valid school finance system” would exist and no funds could “lawfully be raised, distributed, or spent” for schools in fiscal year 2017. In other words, public schools in Kansas would be out of business.

The timing of this ruling was uncertain, but its substance shouldn’t be a surprise. Last year, legislators switched public schools to block-grant funding, based on what districts had received in the previous year, with no provisions for enrollment increases or other factors that affect a district’s budget. They said the block-grant system would be in effect for two years while they crafted a new school finance formula. There seemed to be little progress on drafting a new formula this year, but that apparently will have to change.

Although the court said it would not enforce a lower court order to allocate an additional $54 million to Kansas schools, it seems unlikely Thursday’s court ruling could be satisfied without adding money to the coming year’s budget. With the state already struggling to meet its financial obligations, it will be difficult to add money to school budgets without addressing the state’s revenue situation — something that neither the governor nor legislative leaders wants to do.

The political lines on this issue were being drawn immediately after the ruling was made public, and the situation will only feed existing tensions between the courts and the other two branches of state government. While Democratic leaders called on legislators to restore school funding, some Republicans quickly saw political motivations in the court action. Sen. Jeff Melcher, R-Leawood, called the ruling “just a temper tantrum by the Supreme Court.” House Speaker Ray Merrick, R-Stilwell, noted the timing of the ruling on the same day as House action on the budget. Sen. Julia Lynn, R-Overland Park, also saw political motives in the court’s decision to release the ruling on Thursday instead of on Friday, a more common day to make rulings public. “I think it’s obviously a strategic move on their part to send a message to the Legislature,” she told the Wichita Eagle.

Well, yes. Regardless of when the ruling was released, it sends a clear message to Kansas legislators that their school funding system doesn’t meet constitutional muster and must be changed. Defining and implementing those changes is likely to be a dominant topic for the rest of what now could be a long legislative session.