The 2010 Commission, which monitors school finance, is recommending that Gov. Mark Parkinson and the Kansas Legislature raise taxes to maintain funding for K-12 education.

The commission is not only asking that K-12 receives no cuts for fiscal year 2010, but that schools also receive an increase in funding for fiscal year 2011.

School districts have threatened legislators that they will pursue a lawsuit if they do not receive the level of funding they have requested.

Stephen Iliff, 2010 Commission member and certified public accountant, has disagreed with each of the commission’s previous recommendations and is also not supportive of the committee’s latest proposal.

Iliff argues that K-12 must take part in the budget cuts just like every other state agency, and suggested schools could have some wiggle room in cutting teacher and administrator salaries, which he said have increased by 40 percent in the last 10 years.

“We must all share equally in this economic downturn,” Iliff told Kansas Liberty.

Kent Eckles, vice president of government affairs for the Kansas Chamber of Commerce, also believes that the 2010 Commission’s request to be immune from the cuts is unreasonable. Eckles said that increasing taxes to create more funds for K-12 would result in additional hardship for the economy, while failing to address the underlying “overspending” problem within the state’s budget.

“It is astounding that people can be that out of touch with the state of the economy and with how much pain businesses are feeling,” Eckles told Kansas Liberty. “They forget that businesses fund schools, and that by nurturing business and growing our tax base by creating more jobs we can actually fund education better.”

During the 2009 legislative session, the Kansas National Education Association and the Kansas Association of School Boards regularly clashed with the Kansas Chamber of Commerce during committee hearings on legislation promoting “revenue enhancements.” While the KNEA and KASB constantly pushed for tax increases, the Kansas Chamber fought to maintain current tax levels.

“They always want more revenue and they don’t care where it comes from or what impact it has on others,” he said. “It comes across as kind of greedy.”

Eckles said Republican leadership in the House and Senate have indicated their strong opposition to any kind of tax increases, but that he fully expects the Democrats to push hard for higher taxes.

“There is no doubt there is going to be revenue enhancements, as they call them, considered next session,” Eckles said. 

Derrick Sontag, state director for Americans for Prosperity-Kansas, said he could "not disagree more" with the commission's recommendations and said they would only add to the state's overspending problem.

"I think they are seriously misguided," Sontag told Kansas Liberty. "Their timing to push for a tax increase could not be any worse given the current economic crisis."

Previously on Kansas Liberty:

• 2010 Commission member says 'taxpayers should rise up': http://kansasliberty.com/liberty-update-archive/2009/27jul/districts-blame-budget-cuts-and-lack-of-resources-for-not-completing-effeciency-budget

—Holly Smith

The Week in Review