While the state legislative battles over the budget are over, another legal fight — defining acceptable school funding — continues in Topeka.
Since the economy started its dramatic slide in 2007, education funding repeatedly has been on the budgetary chopping block. According to statistics cited by Kansas State Legislative Research, a non-partisan organization similar to the Congressional Budget Office, spending has dropped more than $500 million since 2007. The drop puts spending at a place on par with levels that were last seen in 2005, when another legal action took place.
In 2005 Montoy v. Kansas established a legal precedent on the issue of school funding.
According to the case, the Legislature had not made a good faith effort to provide what the state constitution called “adequate funding for schools.”
The case ruled education funding should be based upon, “the actual costs to educate children and not political compromise.” The ruling went in favor of parties seeking to have the legislature increase spending, not based on political realities, but the cost of educating children.
“It was a decision that sent a signal that if you give people an avenue to fight for their children’s education then they will,” Joseph Robb, attorney for the 54 school districts currently suing the state, said.
In the two years that followed the decision, education spending, via legal mandate, went up dramatically as the state used standardized test scores to measure the impact of what became known as, “Montoy funding.” Kansas students went up from the middle third of states in education to upper third before funding started to drop. Since then, educators have noticed a steady slide backward in measurable statistics. The Iola school district has seen what the impact can truly be.
“We’ve had $3.5 million in cuts in the last five years,” Brian Pekarek, USD 257 superintendent of schools, said. “These cuts have been costly in so many ways not only in terms of impact on our children in the classroom but then also on the local economy.”
According to Pekarek, when dollars enter into the local economy, they will circulate a minimum of four times in the community before they eventually leave. The effect of cuts at the local level on teaching and staff positions, combined with a lack of a raise for district employees to account for inflation, has meant an across-the-board loss of consumer spending power in Iola. As a result the lawsuit has been something that Pekarek sees as an imperative issue, not just for the school district, but for the entire community.
“If we can’t afford to hire people or give raises then that’s more money not coming into our local businesses,” Pekarek said. “That’s local taxes that aren’t being collected to maintain roads and do all the things that we need in Iola.”
This passion for the cause of education spending was reflected in his comments at Monday’s 257 Board of Education meeting in which he advocated vigorously for continued district funding for the lawsuit. Iola’s district is one of the plaintiffs.
“This case isn’t going to be the end-all-be-all for this issue,” Pekarek said. “The most important thing about this case is advocacy for everyone affected by the cuts in spending. The children are, and should be, our main concern in this. We are saying with this action that if you give us the tools, we can get the job done.”
What might be even more calamitous to education spending is what Robb refers to as, “binging on tax cuts.” The recently passed state budget seeks to cut personal income taxes as well as restructure business taxes to allow many of them to completely avoid paying state business taxes.
The effect of such a cut projects a $2.5 billion deficit within five years, according to non-partisan studies.
The ripple effect from such dramatic budget decreases could be felt across all parts of state-funded programs. With education spending making up more than half of the state budget, schools will feel the pinch further if things are allowed to continue unchecked, according to Pekarek and Robb.
While the schools seeking action have been articulating their side of the argument, the state has been mum on the issue. An attempt to get comment from state Attorney General Derek Schmidt’s office was answered with the policy that the Attorney General’s office does not comment on litigation under way.
