If a recommendation floated by Gov. Kathleen Sebelius' budget office yesterday is followed, Kansas could find itself on another collision course with the state Supreme Court over public education funding.

Whether the recommendation is followed is a big if, according to sources contacted Friday by Kansas Liberty.

Kathe Decker, a former Republican Kansas House member from Clay Center who chaired the House Education Committee when the 2005 Supreme Court order mandating more education spending was issued, said she believed neither the Legislature nor the governor had the “gumption” to turn the recommendation into reality in apparent defiance of the Supreme Court order.

But the options available to either may be limited.

House Majority Leader Ray Merrick, a Stilwell Republican, said he believed Kansas would have no choice but to include public school funding cuts if the state hopes to end the next two fiscal years in the black, as is required by the Constitution.

“I think when we had the [2005] special session after the Supreme Court order, we probably did more in terms of funding than we had to based on the Supreme Court order, so I’m not sure any small cuts we make would be challenged,” he said.

Merrick said he believed no agency or program can be spared from budget cuts if the state is to resolve the budget crisis, even if it prompts a showdown with the Supreme Court.

“It’s going to require something from everyone, and that includes education,” he said.

Merrick added that budget gimmicks that have been used in the past to at least give the appearance that the state was in the black won’t be available this session.

“The well is dry,” he said. “We’ve already racked up $3.6 billion in debt, and the last figures I saw showed we were spending $402,000 a day just to pay interest on that debt.”

Merrick said the budget crisis was a logical consequence of the over-spending in which the Legislature had engaged in the past few years.

“Some people blame it on tax cuts, but if we hadn’t cut taxes, we’d be in a lot worse shape than we are now,” Merrick said.

Mark Tallman, assistant executive director of advocacy for the Kansas Association of School Boards, said if the budget committee recommendation is accepted by the governor and the Legislature, the budget picture for schools in the current fiscal year would be “daunting” but probably manageable.

The 2010 cuts would be much more damaging to school districts, he said, and could lead to a leveling off, or even a back-sliding in terms of student achievement.

He said in fiscal year 2010 the state would need to channel an additional $60 to $80 million to school districts just to keep up with secondary promises made to achieve a settlement of the original lawsuit that led to the Supreme Court order.

Those promises included funding special education programs at 92 percent, and funding a capital outlay equalization program that assists districts in lower-wealth areas of Kansas.

“And that’s before you even get into base state aid per pupil,” he said.

Tallman said the KASB recognizes the difficulties the current economic crisis poses for the state.

“The tough choices are just beginning,” he said.

He said if any spending cuts were to be legally challenged based on the Supreme Court order, it would probably require a new suit altogether.

“I’m not a lawyer, but the original case has been dismissed, so if someone or some group wants to challenge the constitutionally of any spending cuts, I assume it would take a new case,” Tallman said.

Decker agreed. “This would require a new case to be filed, and what did it take the original case to get through whole legal process – eight years or so?”

In the end, it took a state Supreme Court ruling and a special session of the Legislature to implement the court's massive spending hikes for education. House conservatives attempted to block the court from what they considered to be court interference in the Legislature's affairs, but a consortium including Sebelius, the state Senate leadership and House moderates and liberals was enough to ram the funding measure through.

Tallman added that he hoped the governor and the Legislature would find a way to shelter education from spending cuts as the Supreme Court intended.

“Obviously, from our perspective, education is a state priority, and we appreciate efforts to protect it from cuts,” he said.

- Phil LaCerte

The week in Review