The Kansas House of Representatives has been locked up for several days in Topeka, but I want to do my best to let folks at home know why this has not been an easy process. It is far more complex than even I imagined before coming up here.

The first and to many, the most important issue that is at stake is the basic separation of powers between the court system and the legislative branch of government. Article 6, Section 6 (b) of the Kansas Constitution states “the legislature shall make suitable provision for finance of the educational interests of the state.” The document is silent on what constitutes “suitable,” and suggests no authority on this issue save the legislature itself. By the Kansas Supreme Court ruling on a specific amount and not considering any information on their decree but a study that was done by Augenblick and Myers is totally unbelievable! That study was never adopted by the legislature, nor was it considered valid. According to Rep. Ralph Tanner, the then Chairman of House Education in a minority report filed by him December 19, 2002 , “ The report was flawed by a bias in the design of the study which sought opinions of the education community – teachers, principals and superintendents, and school board members- and did not include any economic feasibility questions related to the percentage of the gross state product or the total taxable resources of the state that were being expended on pre-K-12 education” If this court succeeds in its quest to have the “power of the purse” it is the equivalent of taxation without representation to many of us in the legislature. Therefore, we have chosen to hold fast in our commitment to the constitution until we prevail, or until enough of our numbers weaken and give in to the pressure that is brought to bear by several entities up here.

That is the principle issue to myself and others as we stay in this deadlock. The second issue is one that I must admit to not being very informed on because I was not involved in any of the education meetings or discussion of the A & M study when it came out. This is the study that the court has said “must” be accepted to deal with “suitability” regarding education. Please bear with me as I inform you on the basic tenants of the study. It would raise Base State Aid Per Pupil across the state and would increase spending by $817.5 million on this issue; it would equalize capital outlay to the 95th % and reinstate the 4-mill levy limit $18 million; transportation costs would be reimbursed for students living more than 1.25 miles from school = $21.6 million; Special Education aid would be eliminated and special education would become a weight in the formula according to the size of the district $132 million; At-risk and bilingual weightings would be increased by the size of the district $333.9 million; New facilities weighting would be extended to three, not 2 years $3.4 million and low enrollment, correlation, and vocational education weighting would be eliminated $-331.1million.

The study also recommended consolidation of any high school less than $100 students and the break up of any high school more than 900 students. It funded the increases by an increase in sales and compensating tax from 5.3% to 7.3%. And increase in the property tax levy from 20 to 44 mills.

The study also stated that teachers in Kansas are paid enough and additional pay for them need not be addressed. This report has been quoted numerous times in the debate, but when I ran the report as an amendment last night, there were no votes in support of the bill. How do we implement the A & M report as is demanded by the court, is no one believes that it would benefit their district or the state?

For you folks at home, please be patient and continue to have confidence that truth and justice with prevail.

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