Lawmakers in Kansas passed a funding plan on Friday in an effort to prevent a potential shutdown of all public schools in the state next week.
In a vote of 116-6 in the state House and 38-1 in the state Senate, the Republican-dominated legislature chose to adopt the measure, which has now been forwarded to Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback's office to have it signed.
State lawmakers were forced to conduct the special two-day session after the Kansas Supreme Court ordered Legislature to address inequities in the educational funding system, which it considers to be harmful to poorer school districts in the state.
Last month, the Supreme Court said the current formula that Legislature is using to allocate funds leads to the creation of intolerable, wealth-based disparities among school districts. It then issued an ultimatum to lawmakers to solve the problem by June 30.
Despite struggling to find a way to increase financial aid to poor school districts, legislators were able to allocate $38 million to take care of the situation for 2016-17.
Brownback praised state lawmakers for doing a "fantastic job." He said that when he arranged for the special to be held, his goal was to make sure that a plan would be passed that could satisfy the Supreme Court demand and prevent it from shutting down public schools.
Diverting Funds For The New Measure
With the state dealing with budgetary problems, lawmakers were able to secure the measure by diverting funds from other corners of the state government to public schools.
This include tapping into motor vehicle fees and dipping into Kansas' share of a legal settlement the United States entered with tobacco companies back in the 1990s. The plan also secures funds from the sale of assets of a state-owned economic development agency to private investment groups.
The new funding plan is considered to be not as reliant on a reshuffling of current educational funds as earlier measures proposed by Republican legislators.
"I think that solves the problem," John Robb, a lawyer for the four school districts that filed suit against the state government over education funding, said. "We should be able to put that chapter behind us."
The measure has received endorsements from various school districts in Kansas that stood to lose and gain some financial. Robb said this should allow the school districts and the state government to send a joint statement to the Supreme Court that its demand to fix the issue had already been met.
According to legislative researchers, the newly approved funding plan could result in the loss of financial aid for 77 of Kansas' 286 school districts. As many as 169 districts stand to gain from the new measure, while 40 of them are not expected to experience any changes.
The first plan proposed by Republican lawmakers would have had 141 school districts lose some of their educational aid.
