By Gene Meyer | Kansas Reporter

TOPEKA — Democratic leaders of the Kansas House and Senate presented a proposal Tuesday that would use better-than-projected budget revenue to restore school funding cuts and offer property tax relief to home and business owners.

Their plan would use current school funding formulas to provide $45 million in additional state aid from an estimated $351 million in additional state general fund revenue this year for the state's kindergarten through high school students. The plan would also pay $45 million next year. Funding levels after that would be set at 50 percent of each year's projected surpluses, which aren't yet known, until basic state aid reaches $4,492 per pupil. Kansas provides schools $3,780 per pupil in basic state aid now.

"Cuts to Kansas schools have gone way too far in the last seven years," said Kansas House Minority Leader and state Rep. Paul Davis, D-Lawrence. Davis and Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley, D-Topeka, outlined the plan during a news conference Tuesday in Topeka's Lowman Hills Elementary School gym.

"As a result, parents are paying higher fees to support local programs and higher property taxes all for a lower quality of education," Davis said.

The plan conflicts in many ways with one that Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback, a Republican, will present to the Kansas Legislature this session. Brownback's plan also raises basic state aid to $4,492 per pupil, from $3,780 now which is to be funded largely with cost savings rather than the general fund ending balance. Brownback will outline those savings in budget proposals that will be formally presented to the Legislature on Wednesday and Thursday. 

Brownback's plan scraps many of the complex calculations in the current formula that provide extra aid for schools with larger numbers of students than the current formula presumes cost more because they are eligible for free or low-cost lunches, come from bilingual families or must be transported longer distances. It gives local districts more authority to increase local property taxes if voters there want more money than basic state aid would provide.

Critics, including Davis, Hensley and other Democrats who endorsed the plan Tuesday say scrapping the current system shortchanges schools with higher-cost students and locks many schools near the lower basic aid levels legislators have been voting for over the past seven years. 

"Unlike Gov. Brownback's school finance plan, our plan will not raise local property taxes," Hensley said. "In fact, we are going to give Kansans a much needed tax cut."

That cut initially would be provided by another $45 million from projected revenues in 2015 and transferred to what's known as the local ad valorem tax reduction fund. The fund was created in 1938 for legislators to provide cities, counties and other local governments with money from the state general fund and reduce the need for higher local property taxes. Legislators have appropriated no money to that fund since 2004.

The Brownback administration sees a distinct contrast between the two plans, said Sherriene Jones-Sontag, the governor's press secretary.

"We believe that local parents working with local administrators and local school boards is the best way to make spending decisions to meet the needs of local children," Jones-Sontag said.

"That includes the ability of local communities to lower their local mill levy as they see fit," she said.

Brownback's proposal also includes some  equalization funding mechanisms to prevent school districts from losing money if they lower mill levies. 

State Rep. Sheryl Spalding, R-Overland Park, who serves on the House Education Committee, said she and other legislators would need to see more details of both plans before making final decisions on either.

But "what the governor has proposed is a good starting point for further work," said Spalding, who served eight years on the Blue Valley Public Schools board before joining the legislature.

Scrapping the current formula and giving local boards more control over finances is a plus for districts such as Blue Valley, which has a higher property tax base than much of the state, Spalding said. But it isn't clear how all schools will be able to adjust to losing the weightings for their higher-cost students.

"I don't think we've seen the be-all and end-all of school finance change yet," Spalding said.

Tammy Bartels is a Tonganoxie PTA activist and mother of a fifth-grader who attends schools there. She wants to learn more about both plans.

"I kind of like the governor's plan, but we're kind of waiting around to see where it goes," she said.

The Democrats' plan faces another potential hurdle due to the philosophical makeup of the current legislature, said Bob Beatty, a political science professor at Washburn University in Topeka.

Republicans hold a 92-33 majority over Democrats in the Kansas House, which is generally regarded as the more conservative of the two chambers, and 32-8 in the Kansas Senate. Until recently Democrats and moderate Republicans in both houses would form coalitions to work for legislation both wanted.

But this year, the entire Legislature will be up for election and at least eight Senate Republicans, who are generally counted in the moderate camp, seem likely to face challenges from conservative opponents in the August primary, Beatty said.

"That puts moderate Republicans in a tough spot," he said. "They know they are going to be challenged on what they do in this session. "

Forecasting the political ebb and flow among conservative Republican, moderate Republican and Democratic legislators is always difficult, Beatty said. "But this year, wow."

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