A number of Kansas school districts involved in a lawsuit that produced significant funding increases for public schools a few years ago are regrouping and considering another court battle.

They say the state is reneging on its commitment — backed by the Kansas Supreme Court — to a three-year funding plan for K-12 schools.

It’s hard to argue with the school districts’ facts, but it is possible to question their timing.

In 2009, the third year of the funding plan, Kansas and the rest of the nation hit the economic wall. At the beginning of this fiscal year, base state aid to public schools was $4,433 per pupil and set to increase to as much as $4,597. However, after four rounds of cuts, affecting every sector of the state budget, base state aid now stands at $4,218 per pupil.

That’s bad, but with budget estimates released Thursday, it almost certainly will get worse. The state’s revenue estimators are projecting an additional 4.2 percent shortfall in the current fiscal year. That amounts to an additional $235 million that will have to be cut from this year’s budget.

Those cuts are likely to place a real hardship on the state’s school districts and it’s understandable that they are upset. But they aren’t alone. In fact, schools have at least some protection in the form of a federal requirement that the state maintain school funding at 2006 levels in order to qualify for federal stimulus funds. Legislators don’t want to lose those funds. Of course, stimulus funds will run out in 2011. What happens then is anyone’s guess, but that’s another story.

It’s certainly valid to say that legislators have an obligation to raise taxes if that’s what it takes to meet the state’s financial obligation to the public schools, but in an election year in the current economy, it just isn’t realistic to think any significant tax increases will be passed.

The point is that no one questions that the schools are hurting. No one argues that the state has reneged on its funding commitment to public schools, but the same could be said of virtually every other state-funded entity in Kansas.

It may be satisfying for school districts to stomp their feet and threaten another lawsuit, but a little patience may be in order. Gov. Mark Parkinson is asking the districts to delay any action until the state economy has a chance to recover, and that seems like a reasonable request. Both the state and local school districts have better ways to spend their money right now than on an expensive court battle.