Lawrence Public Schools district offices, 110 McDonald Drive.

With the state of school funding relatively up in the air, Lawrence school district leaders are delaying action to approve a budget plan for the upcoming school year.

Earlier this week, however, the district’s finance director, Kathy Johnson, shared a few details of what the budget might look like, pending a decision from the Kansas Supreme Court regarding the constitutional adequacy of the state’s new finance plan.

Under the Legislature’s new school finance plan, which will soon be reviewed by the Supreme Court, the Lawrence district would receive an estimated $74 million dollars in general fund money from the state. That number includes special education funds, and would represent an approximate $6.2 million bump from the 2016-2017 school year, according to estimates from the Kansas State Department of Education shared by the district.

A portion of the new revenue, Johnson said Monday during a presentation to the school board, will need to be allocated toward reducing the district’s budget deficit. An outline of additions and reductions to the 2017-2018 budget plan includes the hiring of two elementary teachers and two secondary teachers on contingency.

Reductions include roughly a dozen full-time equivalent positions, which district leaders have attributed to causes such as natural attrition, enrollment changes and teacher-to-student ratios. District leaders have said no layoffs will be associated with the reductions, which will save the district roughly $815,000.

Allocations of FTE (full-time equivalent) positions are determined in the spring, district spokeswoman Julie Boyle said in an email, before actual enrollment numbers are known in September. Despite a projected enrollment increase of 136 students for the 2016-2017 school year, enrollment for the district’s brick-and-mortar schools turned out to be smaller than expected, with the district seeing an increase of only 41 students.

Staffing for the 2017-2018 school year is also based on projections, Boyle said, and will be adjusted as final enrollment numbers become known in September.

The district’s $87 million bond issue for secondary schools, which passed easily in May, was partially presented as a solution to inefficient and overcrowded spaces caused by increasing enrollment over the last decade. In spring 2016, it was projected that the district’s overall student population would increase over the following five years, growing from about 10,500 to 11,200 students by 2020, according to a report by RSP & Associates.

The bond issue is expected to increase the local mill levy by 2.4 mills. That estimate from district officials equates to an approximate $55 tax increase per year for the owner of a $200,000 home.

In information shared by Johnson and Superintendent Kyle Hayden in an email exchange with the Journal-World, it was said that the district doesn’t “have any additional information at this time that would change” the earlier estimate of 2.4 mills.

“We will know more as we receive assessed valuation information from the three counties within the district, and later in July, the final state budget documents incorporating the new school finance plan,” Johnson and Hayden wrote in a shared statement. “At that time we will provide the board a revised mill levy proposal for 2017-2018.”

The Lawrence school district’s boundaries extend slightly into Jefferson and Leavenworth counties.

The Kansas Supreme Court will begin hearings on the school finance plan July 18, with a ruling expected by the end of that month. Meanwhile, the state’s new plan will go into effect July 1.

In Lawrence, a tentative publication of the budget plan in July, as well as a budget hearing set for August, will tentatively be delayed until the Supreme Court’s decision and until state budget forms are made available by the Kansas State Department of Education.

The Lawrence school board will meet Monday to approve several items on the district’s tentative budget plan, including hiring recommendations. The budget hearing itself, pending the Supreme Court’s decision on the state’s school finance plan, will tentatively take place Aug. 14.

Monday’s school board meeting will be at 9 a.m. at the district offices, 110 McDonald Drive.