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Kansas Lawmakers Hoping to Write New School Funding Plan Next Year

Photo by Stephen Koranda
Photo by Stephen Koranda

A Kansas Statehouse committee is studying education spending to lay the groundwork for writing a new school funding formula. Lawmakers tossed out the old spending plan earlier this year and went to a temporary block grant system.

Republican state Representative Ron Highland says they’re hoping to craft a new school funding formula next year.


“That’s what I’m hearing from leadership. (There are) a lot of complicating factors, election year and those things, but we put ourselves on a two-year time table and we have to work on it,” says Highland.

 

Democratic state Senator Anthony Hensley says it’s a tall order to write a new formula in one session. He points to the last system written in the 1990s.


“It took us a couple of interims, an entire legislative session and then some to be able to put together a school finance formula. I’m not sure we’ve got the time or the political will to put together a new school finance formula,” says Hensley.

 

Hensley says legislators may need to extend the temporary block grant system if they can’t write a new spending plan in time.

 

Stephen Koranda is KPR's Statehouse reporter.