The new school funding formula is eerily similar to one that existed a few years ago.
Jeff Longbine, State Senator, said that he is hopeful that the formula will satisfy the Kansas Supreme Court.
“Coming out of the block grant, instead of writing a brand new formula we ended up going back to something that was very similar to the old school finance plan, which in my opinion served us pretty well,” said Longbine. “We went back to base aid per pupil, we went back to waitings that allowed Districts extra money to help challenges that they have.”
Those challenges could include the number of at risk students or transportation issues, for example.
The funding formula provides a $293 million increase in aid to Kansas’ school districts over a two year period.
“I think [the State Supreme Court] will like the formula – they may come back and say that the adequacy part ‘we’d like to see more money’, and if they do we’ll have to figure out how to do that; but I think that the structure of the formula will certainly be approved, I can’t imagine that it wouldn’t be – the money portion would be the only question,” said Longbine.
There are two provisions in the new formula that are directly beneficial to Geary County Schools USD 475.
“The first is student count on the September 20th date; the formula that we have in place in now is that they will receive their base aid per pupil on either enrollment count on the day or the rolling three year average from the three years previous, whichever is highest – that really helps [USD] 475 if they have deployments or they’re down on students.”
A second count enrollment date is also included in the new formula.
“Originally when we got that in, people wanted to make it net numbers so that if enrollment was up in the Spring, then they would take money away; we [Senate] were able to successfully leave that as a gross number so that if there are more students in the Spring, then it will be extra money.”
A July 18th date has been set by the Kansas Supreme Court for a hearing on the new school funding formula and finance plan. The State has said the formula will go into effect on July 1st, pending the hearing in the following weeks.