The Kansas Legislature has not made cuts to education, State Sen. Caryn Tyson contends in a recent newsletter. Such accusations “couldn’t be more wrong,” she writes.
Kansas law says base state aid per pupil should be $4,492. Today, it is $3,838. Since Tyson’s election to the House in 2010, and then to the Senate in 2012, state aid has dropped about $100 per pupil.
Tyson’s defense is that she has never actually voted to reduce funding for schools, rather she just has never voted to adequately fund them.
So technically, she’s right. But that’s small comfort to our teachers and students.
In essence, there’s as many subtractions to education as there are additions.
For example, districts like Iola’s are heavily “weighted,” meaning we have a high number of poor students and so we receive more funds per student as compared to wealthy districts.
Even though Iola now has almost 100 fewer students than in 2008, the district’s “weighting” is up, reflecting the area’s increasing rate of poverty.
While that should reflect more money for the district, the funding mechanism has witnessed a straight forward decrease from $4,400 in 2008-09 per student to $3,838 today.
Another example of cuts is the elimination of state contributions to a district’s capital outlay fund. In 2008-09, the state spread about $22 million among its schools for such budgets. Those funds help a school buy computers, buses, and make repairs to buildings. For the last four years, state funding in that line item has been zero.
Of course costs have not remained stagnant. USD Superintendent of Schools Jack Koehn says this year alone expenses have gone up by $8,000 for things like insurance, fuel, utilities, etc.
Who makes up the difference? You.
Last year the school district raised its mill levy for capital outlay funds from 4.49 to 6 mills. One mill raises about $51,861 in Allen County.
The third example of cuts to education is a reduction in state funding to districts’ local option budgets from 100 percent to 78 percent.
This money is used for a district’s general expenses and helps cover salaries, operational expenses and insurance.
Instead of the state carrying the full cost, local districts are having to make up the difference. Again, district property taxes have gone up.
