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Kansas lawmakers just passed legislation to comply with the recent state Supreme Court ruling mandating increased K-12 funding to poor school districts, but it didn’t come easy.
The Kansas City Star notes that “[l]awmakers discussed taking the money out of the state’s reserve fund, but those dollars are needed just to keep the lights on in state government. They talked about taking from some educational funds to give to others. They considered shaking out pockets looking for spare change. At one point, senators were reduced to eying the $2 million in the problem gambling fund.”
These difficult choices are a direct result of the last two years of radical tax cuts. Governor Sam Brownback’s supply-side promises notwithstanding, his regressive income tax cuts show no sign of paying for themselves anytime soon, which means lawmakers must look under cushions to meet their court-mandated funding obligations.
The current budget is balanced precariously. As the Kansas City Star reminds us, “Right now, the budget is balanced only by dipping into reserve funds. If current revenue and spending trends continue, it will go underwater in 2016. After that, a state that is shortchanging its universities and disabled citizens will have to start cutting more deeply; forecasters estimate $962 million in cuts by the 2019 fiscal year. Kansas already is raiding its highway fund to pay for transportation of school students and even a chunk of the debt service for the recently completed statehouse reconstruction. Part of the teachers’ pension funds are coming from gambling revenues, in apparent violation of state statute.”
Having found $129 million in new money for poor school districts, the legislature clearly felt the need to dispel any illusion on the part of voters that they actually value public schools, and added legislative measures to undermine them. Kansas is now the latest state to enact “neo-vouchers,” corporate tax credits for companies making contributions to private schools. As we’ve explained in the past, this back-door approach to school vouchers erodes corporate tax revenues, takes money away from already-strapped public schools, and limits state policymakers’ oversight of the private schools receiving these state-funded scholarships. In other words, having grudgingly given new revenue to public schools with one hand, they now will be taking it away with the other.