State delays nearly $260 million in payments to schools as Kansas finances fall short again

? The state of Kansas delayed nearly $260 million in payments to school districts during the last week of June, including about $5.5 million owed to the Lawrence school district, in an effort to finish the year with a positive balance in its bank account.

The delayed school payment was one of several moves that Gov. Sam Brownback’s administration made in the final month of the fiscal year as total taxes came in $34.5 million below expectations in June, and $106.4 million short for the year as a whole.

Kansas Revenue Secretary Nick Jordan blamed the shortfall as part of a national trend.

“Unfortunately, Kansas is a part of a national trend with many states reporting reductions in revenue collections because of a weak economy,” he said.

Total tax receipts for the year, at $5.9 billion, were up by less than 1 percent compared to 2015, despite lawmakers raising the sales tax rate last year to 6.5 percent.

Gov. Sam Brownback’s administration had announced earlier in the month that it expected a shortfall in June, and that a partial delay of final-month payments to school districts would be one of the tools used to keep the state from ending the year in the red.

State education officials said that has happened in at least each of the last five fiscal years, but the amount held back this year, 71 percent of all the money due to schools in June, was larger than normal.

But Brownback’s press secretary Eileen Hawley said the practice has been used as far back as 2004. In June 2010, during the depths of the Great Recession, the state held back $292 million, the most ever.

She described the delayed payment as a “re-appropriation” and said it is a common cash management tool. In effect, she said, the state is rolling over delayed payments from previous years and adding to the total.

Last year, the state delayed $209 million of the final monthly payment.

According to data from the Kansas State Department of Education, the state held back $212.1 million in general state aid in June, and another $47.8 million in supplemental, or “local option budget” state aid, for a total of $259.9 million.

The balance of the June payments is expected to be paid out by July 7 during the first week of the new fiscal year.

The administration also took general fund money from the Department of Corrections’ budget and unspent Children’s Initiative Fund money to come up with another $23.6 million.