School Cuts 'Hurting Kids’

The State Board of Education said last week that additional cuts in state aid to 293 public school districts due to declining state revenues would harm the quality of education in Kansas.

The current per-student stipend is below the $4,257 spending level in fiscal 2006, when the Legislature added $460 million to state aid to satisfy a Kansas Supreme Court ruling that the previous funding level was unconstitutional.

State aid has dropped from $4,433 per pupil last year to $4,218 per pupil currently. The level is expected to drop to $4,068 per pupil after state officials lowered the estimate of fiscal 2010 revenue by $253 million earlier this month.

Dale Dennis, deputy commissioner of education for finance, said school districts have already taken a $100 million reduction in state aid that won’t be made up, and further cuts could require layoffs and closures. Districts have some flexibility in shifting funds to pay teachers, he said, but revenue earmarked for debt service and capital improvements cannot be used for operational expenses.

“I think it’s the worst that we’ve seen in our tenure,” Dennis said.

Board chairwoman Janet Waugh said the state was at the “point of no return.”

“It’s beyond ridiculous,” she said. “We’re hurting kids at this point.”

Echoing the state board’s concern, the 2010 Commission, an appointed citizens panel that studies school finance issues, last week adopted a policy measure that said education is the most important function of state government.

“We’ve got a whole generation who will be negatively impacted by the idiots and fools in Washington and Topeka that have been making policy,” said commissioner Dennis Jones, who headed the Kansas Republican Party in 2004.

Commission member Marti Crow, a Democratic state representative from Leavenworth, said the proposed education cuts would harm at-risk students in small school districts.

“We cannot sacrifice a generation of students because the economy is weak,” she said.

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Kansas
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