Gov. Sam Brownback said Tuesday he is willing to consider ideas from legislators for modifying his plan to overhaul how the state finances its public schools.
But Landon Fulmer, his policy director, said he didn’t think a plan will pass unless it eliminates the state cap on local property taxes, as the governor has proposed to do.
The Legislature capped the amount of money school districts could raise through property taxes to keep the amount spent on each student more or less equal. If rich districts such as those in Johnson County could spend as much as they wished on their schools they would be able to give their youngsters a more expensive education than the three Allen County districts — and most of the other school districts in Kansas — could afford. That, the Legislature prudently decided, would be found unconstitutional.
To respond to this likelihood, the governor’s plan calls for the money raised by school district levies to be pooled and then distributed according to the evaluation of each school district. Poor districts would receive more of the money from the pool than rich ones — but the more wealthy districts would be able to keep more of the property tax money they raise than is now the case with the cap.
The same redistribution of funds would occur if a district or other governmental unit imposed a sales tax to fund K-12 education.
These redistribution provisions would meet constitutional requirements, it is believed.
Whether rich districts would raise their ad valorem tax rates to increase their K-12 budgets only to see the money used to lift all of the boats in the harbour remains to be seen. But the governor’s motivation seems clear: If the wealthy districts did decide to tax themselves more for K-12, that would be dandy fine with him. The schools would get more cash without the need to raise state taxes to provide it. A larger part of the cost of education would be shifted from the state to the districts.
It will be an interesting experiment.
— Emerson Lynn, jr.
