photo by: Peter Hancock

Rep. John Barker of Abilene, left, and Sen. Jeff King of Independence, chairmen of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees, preside over two days of joint hearings on school funding equity. The full Legislature returns to the Statehouse June 23 for the start of a special session to address a Kansas Supreme Court order.

After two days of joint hearings, the House and Senate Judiciary Committees could not arrive at any consensus about how the Legislature should respond to a Kansas Supreme Court ruling that threatens to shut down the public school system in just two weeks.

Instead, both committees voted separately — first the Senate panel, then the House — to merely send the minutes and testimony of their hearings to their respective budget committees for consideration when the full Legislature returns for a special session next week.

And separately, the Senate panel agreed that when the full Legislature returns June 23, it will recommend a constitutional amendment prohibiting the court from closing schools as a remedy in future school finance lawsuits.

That lack of action infuriated Democrats, including Rep. Jim Ward, of Wichita, who called the decision”absurd,” adding, “We could have had people send that to us, or to the whole Legislature by email.”

At one point Friday, both committees seemed willing to recommend one answer to the court’s most recent order: reinstate the old formula for distributing equity aid to school districts that lawmakers repealed last year and fully funding that formula, at a cost of about $38 million.

But Johnson County lawmakers dug in their heels because their school districts would lose substantial amounts of money under that change. Many of them, including Rep. Erin Davis and Sen. Julia Lynn, both Olathe Republicans, said they would not support any recommendation unless it includes a “hold harmless” provision to make sure no districts would lose money, a provision that would cost an extra $11.7 million.

Those were districts that benefited greatly when the Legislature revised the funding formula earlier this year, although lawmakers did at that time include a hold-harmless provison to make sure other districts did not lose money. The Lawrence school district was among those that lost money, but received it back through the hold-harmless provision.

But the Supreme Court struck down those changes, saying they created inequities that force lower-wealth districts to levy much higher property taxes than wealthier ones in order to achieve comparable levels of funding.

According to figures from the Kansas State Department of Education, reverting back to the old formula without another hold-harmless provision would cost the Blue Valley School District $2.4 million in state aid for its local option budget in the upcoming year, while the Shawnee Mission school district would lose about $1.5 million in state aid. Those districts would, however, be able to recoup that money by raising local property taxes.

The Lawrence school district, by contrast, would gain $1.5 million in state equalization aid, which would enable it to reduce local property taxes.

Still others on both panels said they were unwilling to spend any additional money because they believed the Supreme Court was wrong in striking down the funding formula lawmakers approved this year.

Democrats plan

As the joint hearings were going on Friday morning, Democratic leaders of the House and Senate held a news conference to unveil their own plan for addressing the court’s decision.

It called for returning to the previous formula and funding the $38 million additional cuts through a series of spending cuts in other areas, including transferring $15.2 million out of an “extraordinary need” fund that was set up to help school districts that suffer big enrollment declines or property valuation losses, eliminating a $13 million job creation program in the Department of Commerce, cutting state aid for virtual education, eliminating a tax credit program that funds private school vouchers, and sweeping about $3 million in idle funds from the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program.

“The Legislature has been given three opportunities by the courts to find a solution, but has failed each time,” Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley, of Topeka, said. “While members of the judiciary committee are wasting time and taxpayer dollars on an amendment to unnecessarily change the Kansas Constitution, we are proposing a real solution to the equity order that will ensure schools open in the fall.”

But House Republicans immediately attacked that plan as a “job killer.”

In a joint statement, the House GOP caucus said: “While it’s nice that the Democrats finally came up with an idea other than voting no, their plan would force the state of Kansas to break binding commitments already made with job creators, which is at odds with their claims of support for working Kansans. Republicans are putting together a solution that releases Kansas children from their judicial hostage takers and makes sure students will be back in classrooms this fall without the killing jobs they need after graduation.”

Video from Friday’s meeting (oldest first)