School Finance II

I'm perplexed.

You may be aware that the Topeka Capital-Journal newspaper is using the state's open records law to uncover information about a group called "Schools for Fair Funding." SFF is the organization that successfully sued the state for increased K-12 school funding. The Kansas Supreme Court recently dismissed the lawsuit after determining that the legislature met its funding obligation within the court's mandate.

Now we find through the Capital-Journal's good efforts that only 19 of the state's 300 school districts actually contributed money to SFF in pursuit of the legal remedy. Manhattan gave about $137k of your tax dollars to the effort. Salina was the largest sending $415k to the party. Interestingly, 88% of the state's districts did not participate in the lawsuit.

With that said, don't you find it odd that a government entity, in this case 19 school districts including Manhattan, can use your and my tax dollars to sue us for more tax dollars? And now the SFF lawyers who brought the case against us are refusing to open their books for our inspection. I mean this was our money, right?

Well, it's all rather weird.

But this is what happens when reasonable people give-up on the democratic process. Here, the governor and the legislature failed their constitutional responsibility to adequately fund K-12 education. Or at a minimum, they didn't convince enough of us that the existing funding formula was or was not adequate to the task. Then, rather than to work out a solution, they simply defaulted their responsibilities to the courts.

I'm not arguing that additional school funding was not required. But the process for getting it lacked political courage and wisdom. We elect legislators to make these decisions on our behalf. We select a governor to lead the process. Neither branch was up to the task in this matter. They walk.

First published in the Manhattan Free Press, August 16, 2006.