TOPEKA, Kan. _ Kansas lawmakers have until the end of June to fix the state's school finance system after the state Supreme Court issued a ruling Thursday saying that the state had failed to ensure adequate funding for public schools.
The court determined that the state is failing to provide roughly one-fourth of its public school students with basic math and reading skills. If the state fails to demonstrate the adequacy of a new funding system by the end of June, then the state's current system will become invalid.
Four school districts first sued the state in 2010 for more education funding, contending that the state was failing to meet a constitutional requirement for suitable funding.
Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley, a Topeka Democrat, issued a statement within minutes of the ruling's publication on the Supreme Court's website.
"Today's decision confirms what we already knew _ Kansas schools are significantly underfunded, threatening the quality of education our children are receiving wherever they may reside in our state," Hensley said.
The case made its way to the Kansas Supreme Court before being split into two parts, adequacy and equity.
The equity side of the case led to last June's special session where lawmakers gave more money to districts with lower property tax money, such as Kansas City, Kan.
Since the start of the case, lawmakers have repealed the old school finance formula in favor of a block grants system that essentially froze funding for school districts since 2015.
The court concluded in its ruling Thursday that the block grants enacted as a stop-gap measure failed to ensure adequate funding. Even before the court issued its ruling lawmakers would have faced a June 30 deadline to replace the block grants, which expire at the end of this school year.
The school districts that sued the state are Kansas City, Dodge City, Hutchinson and Wichita, but the decision will impact all the school districts in Kansas.
Alan Rupe, the attorney for the plaintiff districts, said in an email that he expects the Legislature to act quickly to satisfy order.
"With the additional pressure of this Court's June 30, 2017 deadline to comply with its order, it would be shocking if the Legislature did not undergo significant efforts to put a constitutional funding formula into place," Rupe said.
The school districts legal team estimated before oral arguments in September that constitutional compliance could cost the state from $400 million to more than $1 billion in funding.
That's money Kansas doesn't seem to have on hand given the state's financial woes during the later years of Gov. Sam Brownback's administration.
During the oral arguments in September, Rupe argued that roughly a third of Kansas kids were floundering and cited a lack of funding as a reason for students' struggles.
The state's legal team told the justices that more money, like the school districts were asking the court to order, doesn't necessarily mean better results.
Brownback has been critical of the state's highest court directing the Legislature on how it should fund schools. He's also been critical of school districts' spending, saying that too much money goes to administration and not enough money finds its way into the classroom.
And while state funding for education has increased to just under $4 billion during the Brownback administration, some school officials have said it's not enough to keep pace with rising costs and the growing needs of students.
Kansas lawmakers have anxiously waited for the court to release a decision in the Gannon case.
The uncertainty of what the order could bring has made lawmakers hesitant as they try to solve projected budget shortfalls of more than $1 billion through the end of fiscal year 2019.
They are also only in the early stages of writing a new school finance formula to take the place of the current block grant system.
Those block grants are set to expire on July 1.
