In their role to ensure Kansas children receive a good education, Kansas Supreme Court justices ruled Monday that while legislators have made a good faith effort to address 10 years of cuts to school funding, they failed to include the rate of inflation of those years lost.
To redress the balance, legislators were given a full fiscal year to hammer it out.
Thats the best scenario possible.
The alternative would have been to request legislators to immediately fund the lost income or else face the responsibility of closing schools.
Before the ink had dried, ultra-conservatives attacked the justices for acting out of order.
Predictably, State Sen. Steve Fitzgerald, Republican candidate for Congress, claimed the Supreme Court oversteps again. Kris Kobach, Republican for governor, said, They are going to keep demanding more and more spending if we keep caving to them as Colyer did last year.
But what comes as the biggest surprise is this from the Kansas Republican Party: The people of Kansas should be making this decision, not black robes in ivory towers.
Such disrespect for a high court is unheard of (at least before the age of President Trump.)
The remarks are also telling of the growing divide among Republicans.
Gov. Jeff Colyer accepted the ruling with equanimity, saying I look forward to building on the work weve done.
Former Sen. Jim Barnett, R-Topeka, was also on the Courts side, saying the 2018 funding merely restored funding levels that last were approved adequate 10 or more years ago.
Instead of increasing as inflation increased, school funding levels remained too low as shown by every study commissioned during the period, including two by the legislature itself.
The time for judicial disparaging has passed, Barnett concluded.
Democratic gubernatorial candidates Laura Kelly and Josh Svaty are on the same side of the coin as moderate Republicans as is Greg Orman, the Independent.
We shudder to think what our schools would be like if we did not have this separation of powers to ensure the state constitution is carried forward.
