The Judicial Center, which houses the Kansas Supreme Court. (Photo by Stephen Koranda)The Kansas Supreme Court will release a long-awaited decision Friday in a lawsuit over school funding. KPR’s Stephen Koranda reports.
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Some school districts and parents are arguing that Kansas isn’t living up to previous agreements on education funding and the state needs to increase how much it spends on K-12 schools. Attorneys for the state have said it’s up to the Legislature to decide how much should be spent on education. A previous lawsuit over school funding ended with an agreement to increase spending, but lawmakers cut back on the funding during the economic downturn.
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The Kansas Supreme Court will hand down a decision today (FRI) in a lawsuit over school funding and the potential impact could be hundreds of millions of dollars. A group made up of school districts and parents says Kansas is not living up to its constitutional responsibility to fund education. They say the state has reneged on promises to increase spending. Those promises followed a previous lawsuit over school funding. Lawyers for the state say it is up to legislators, not the courts, to decide how much to spend on schools. Representative Kasha (CASH-uh) Kelley, an Arkansas City Republican, chairs the House Education Committee.
Kelley says the ruling could lead lawmakers to consider rewriting the state’s school funding formula. She says if the court orders more funding, lawmakers will have few options other than spending cuts or increasing taxes. But the decision could also prompt a standoff between lawmakers and the courts. Some legislators say the justices would be overstepping their bounds by ordering the state to spend more.