Recent Kansas Editorials

The Kansas City Star, March 26

Needed amusement park ride regulation advancing in Kansas

Kansas made important strides last week in the effort to make amusement park rides safer.

A House committee held two days of hearings on a bill that would tighten inspection requirements for amusement rides. The legislation was introduced following the tragic death of Caleb Schwab at the Schlitterbahn Water Park last year.

The bill would require an annual inspection of permanent rides by a qualified inspector. Temporary rides would need to be inspected 30 days prior to use. The proposal also tightens insurance requirements for rides and record-keeping standards.

Some ride operators and members of the Legislature said lawmakers should avoid “undue” regulation of amusement rides. We see nothing in the bill, sponsored by the Committee on Federal and State Affairs, that would make it unreasonably difficult or expensive to operate rides safely.

Minor amendments may be in order, but the state House and Senate should put the bill on the governor’s desk before adjournment.

We remain concerned about oversight of amusement ride design. Rides might be maintained and operated correctly, yet still be dangerous because of how they were constructed.

Congress should hold hearings on amusement ride design standards and oversight. A federal review of ride design remains an important goal.

There can be no excuse for another tragedy like the one at the Schlitterbahn park.

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The Hutchinson News, March 24

Lawmakers step up with relief for wildfire victims

It’s so easy to focus on what government does wrong; it seems worthwhile to stop and recognize when government does something good.

Not long after the state’s largest wildfire in history torched more than 650,000 acres in Clark and Comanche counties, the Kansas Legislature began work to offer some modest, but important help to ranchers and farmers in the area struggling to rebuild.

The measure creates a sales tax exemption for supplies and services related to rebuilding property lost to the fire. The measure won’t cost the state much money, and it won’t save farmers, ranchers and property owners much money, but it will help. The bill was signed Wednesday by Gov. Sam Brownback and became effective Thursday after publication in the Kansas Register.

This is one example of how government can work when people set out to positively affect the lives of Kansans - and see their role as lawmakers as a way to make life better for the state’s residents. Of course, that’s easy to do when there’s an overwhelming tragedy at hand that has damaged so many people and so much land.

Yet, it’s still encouraging to see a unified spirit of commitment to Kansas and its people - and to see that the legislature is not just willing, but eager, to be responsive to the hardships faced by people in this state, and respond with a meaningfully kind action that will help, in some way, alleviate the strain of recovery.

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Lawrence Journal-World, March 27

Education bill needs work

Flawed as it may be, give Kansas lawmakers credit for getting a new school funding bill on the table.

Given the state’s budget problems, the demands of a Kansas Supreme Court order and the competing political interests involved in K-12 education, writing a new school funding formula is anything but easy. Writing one that everybody likes? Impossible.

That said, it’s hard to imagine the current bill (House Bill 2410), which only increases public education funding by $75 million per year and mandates that a significant portion of the funding be raised by districts through local property taxes, is the best lawmakers can do.

The bill is expected to be advanced by the House K-12 Budget Committee to the full House by April 7. It is reasonable for Kansans to expect changes before that happens.

As it stands, HB 2410 establishes “foundation aid” for each district based on enrollment, with additional weightings given for at-risk and bilingual students, along with other factors. The bill also gives districts the option of raising additional money locally for program enhancements and extracurricular activities.

Under the new proposal, districts would be required to raise local taxes to provide the local share of “foundation aid.” Districts would have the option, with limits, to raise additional money under what would be called “local enhancement budgets” and “local activities budgets.”

The state’s share of foundation aid would be $4,170 per student. Local districts would add another $1,150 per student, for a total of $5,320. Districts could then levy taxes for another $288 per student for its enhancement budget and $212 per student for an activities budget.

Those local property tax levies would be subsidized with additional state aid so taxpayers in lower-wealth districts would not have to pay higher tax rates in order to generate comparable levels of funding that wealthier districts could generate, a process known as “equalization.”

On a statewide basis, according to the Department of Education’s estimates, the state would pay $3.157 billion on public schools next year under the new plan. That compares to $3.081 billion it is spending this year, an increase of just $75.6 million.

The new funding plan looks a lot like the 2015 funding plan lawmakers discarded that year, except that the “Local Option Budget” that districts could use to supplement state funding is now essentially mandatory.

The Kansas Supreme Court, which earlier this month ruled school funding in Kansas is unconstitutionally low and gave lawmakers until June 30 to fix it, has not dictated how much new funding is necessary to meet its definition. But $75 million has to be underwhelming to education advocates, considering the Kansas State Board of Education estimated $566 million is needed this year to bring school funding up to “adequacy.”

Consider House Bill 2410 a work in progress. Lawmakers can do better, and it’s reasonable to expect that they will.

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The Iola Register, March 27

Reasons that districts have fiscal reserves

A maxim mentioned by conservatives when school finance rears its head is that school districts are sitting on large sums of money that go unspent.

The most recent statement to that effect came from David Dorsey, senior school policy fellow with the Kansas Policy Institute.

He wrote: “… school districts in Kansas have quietly amassed cash reserves of $853 million, an 82 percent increase from a decade earlier!”

Dorsey’s statement is absolutely true, but there is more to the story.

Craig Neuenswander, former USD 257 superintendent and now school finance director for the Kansas Department of Education, pointed out some federal and capital funds have restrictions that limit expenditures, including they cannot be spent in the classroom.

- The balance in the supplemental general fund cannot be spent because districts have a budget limitation. The balance is used to lower property taxes in the next budget year - cash carryover frequently found in local budgets. This fund, also known as the local option budget, is determined by a percentage of the general fund, and funded in part by local property taxes. The levy this year is 17.333 mills in USD 257. The LOB is about 30 percent of the general fund: $3.15 million compared to $10.25 million.

- Food service balance may be used only for breakfast and lunch expenses, and what is budgeted appears as a balance until it is spent, a year-long process. USD 257’s food service expenditures are predicted at $990,671 this year.

- Some districts have a self-insured health plan, which means contributions are held in reserve and accumulated.

- Gifts and grants may be spent only for the purposes specified by the donor of those funds. In the current budget, USD 257 has $134,205.

- The Activities Fund, largely student money, is a part of the budget, but available only for student activities. When students raise money - at car washes, bake sales or similar ventures - for the prom or special trips, those proceeds go the Activities Fund.

- USD 257 also has $142,867 set aside in its budget for bond and interest payments, part of which is reflected in reserve until payments are due.

Neuenswander also noted that Dorsey was correct in that balances such as the contingency reserve have increased.

Reserves are kept for many reasons, such as accumulation for textbook and technology purchases, “but in part it is due to human nature,” Neuenswander said. Some districts also bank money when major repairs or remodeling are anticipated.

During the recession, schools districts had to deal with several funding cuts within one year and since have had annual reductions in state aid, because of the 2012-13 income tax cuts that failed to spur the economy as Gov. Sam Brownback and his supporters promised.

Resulting pessimism led districts to be more cautious than usual. “When this is the case, you try to increase your reserves, not spend them,” Neuenswander said. Consequently, fear may be a primary reason for the increase in cash balances.

Kansas school districts hit a fiscal wall this year and last when block grant funding replaced the 20-plus-year-old formula that determined state aid by enrollment and factors that took into consideration economic conditions within each district.

Block grant funding did provide more money to districts - after a fashion. The funding included money for the state retirement fund - KPERS - and made special education aid a part of the base funding. Money in neither of those have anything to do with traditional classrooms.

KPERS ($870,619 in this 257 budget) immediately turns around and returns to the state while special education funds - $2.8 million this year - flows to that segment of education, in USD 257’s case the ANW Cooperative.

Changes are coming.

Supreme Court justices recently ruled - in what should be considered a landmark decision and one that drove another stake in the ill-advised income tax cuts - block grant funding is unconstitutional in the Kansas document’s requirement all children should receive an adequate and equitable education.

The second order of the justices was that Kansas was not meeting its financial obligations to schools. The Legislature was given until June 30 to construct a new school aid formula and adequately fund it. They did not put a dollar figure on funding. Estimates have ranged from $300 million to $800 million.

Meanwhile, as has been reported ad infinitum, funding must be found to balance this year’s state budget, with a current deficit of $281 million, and then fill a $1.1 billion shortfall for fiscal years 2018 and 2019 budgets.