Legislative issues affecting Eudora Schools

Eudora Schools is proud to be a part of the Kansas public education system, known as one of the strongest state education systems in the nation. Funding from the state is critical to the work that is done to give all students in Eudora access to a free, appropriate education, as guaranteed by the state constitution.

The following are updates and resources intended to inform patrons about issues the district faces in its efforts to secure adequate funding and provide equity for all students, regardless of income.

Issue: House Bill 2739

This bill would reduce general state aid to Kansas schools by $85.9M, hitting the Eudora Schools general fund with a $256,000 cut. In addition, state aid for the local option budget, or LOB, would be reduced by $456,339. In turn, the bill allows districts to raise local taxes in order to make up lost LOB aid. In Eudora, it would take an additional 9.66 mills to make up this difference. In short, Eudora taxpayers would face a 14% local tax increase that would still result in less funding than the previous year.

Updated: The importance of state aid to equality of opportunity

Click here to download a guide that demonstrates the role that equalization plays in Eudora Schools.

In the time since the school finance formula was changed in the early 1990s, Eudora has seen tremendous growth in student achievement and in the quality and quantity of educational opportunities. These changes did not happen by accident. State aid programs are intended to equalize resources across the state so that students in property-poor districts, such as Eudora, have equal access to high-quality public education.

Measures proposed to balance the state budget on the backs of local school boards — including changes in the taxing authority of school districts — will hurt Eudora:

Eudora is a property-poor district. As such, one mill raised in our school district generates just $56,000 for our budget. By contrast, neighboring districts with greater property wealth can raise $400,000 and more with just one mill. The school board's ability to raise mills is fundamentally unfair to districts like ours.
Eudora taxpayers pay into the state aid system, just as the taxpayers in the wealthier districts. State aid is not about getting something for nothing. It is about a state-wide system that treats all Kansas kids fairly. Zip code should not determine the quality of a student’s education. State aid programs — not local option budgets — act in the best interest of all Kansans.
Real solutions to the funding crisis in our state require creating new revenue. The loss of state aid and the shifting of revenue responsibility onto local school boards only serve to reward wealthier districts and punish poorer districts.

Issue: Cuts for the 2010-11 school year

As the Kansas legislature considers further cuts to K-12 education funding, Eudora Schools may see as much as a $1 million further reduction from last year’s approved budget. Tragically, state aid cuts of this magnitude can only be offset by district-level changes that will profoundly impact the way students in Eudora receive their education.

Click here to read about options the Eudora Board of Education is considering.

Click here to download a document that explains the potential cuts and how the state funding crisis has affected Eudora Schools.

Issue: State funding for public education and mid-year cuts

In November, Gov. Mark Parkinson announced further cuts in state aid for K-12 education in Kansas for the current budget year, which began on July 1. These cuts were in addition to cuts to the current budget year that lawmakers voted to approve last spring and continue to be based on shortfalls in state revenue, increasing numbers of students and growing needs for at-risk students. These factors, coupled with a lack of new revenue programs, are affecting school districts around the state. The Eudora district is being affected in the following ways:

Since the governor's latest round of cuts announced in November, base state aid per pupil has dropped from $4,433 (the funding rate at the beginning of 2008-09 school year) to $4,012 for 2009-10. In Eudora, this cuts an additional $355,000 from the general fund, on top of the $273,000 lost in state aid at the beginning of this fiscal year.
State aid to special education funding was cut by one percent this year, costing our district approximately $70,000.
Overall, the Eudora district has sustained more than $838,000 in cuts to state funding since the beginning of the 2008-09 school year.

Eudora Schools leaders believe that the district runs as efficiently as possible, with low administrative overhead and highly successful programs that have enabled students from all backgrounds to achieve success. Cuts of this kind — and any future cuts — will have a negative impact on these programs, which ultimately threatens success of our students. Furthermore, voters and taxpayers are encouraged to consider the significant challenge to school leaders and districts when cuts to state aid are made in the middle of a budget year.

Impact study on benefits of the 2005 finance settlement

The 2008-2009 school year concludes four years of funding increases passed after the Kansas Supreme court's 2005 decisions in Montoy v. Kansas, which found that the legislature was not meeting its constitutional duty to provide suitable finance for education. During a special session in 2005, and after a new study of the costs of educational outcomes in 2006, the legislature narrowly passed significant changes in the school finance formula.

How Eudora Schools benefited from the new funding formula
The new state funding formulas most greatly benefited districts with a high rate of at-risk student enrollment. For this reason, Eudora ranks near the bottom of districts benefiting from the changed formulas. The net change in per-pupil state aid went up 9.9 percent in the three years from 2004-05 and 2006-07 (the comparative data available from the Legislative Division of Post Audit). This rate of increase puts Eudora Schools in the bottom 15% of all districts in the state in increased aid.

How the money was spent
Across the state of Kansas, districts spent most of the new money on teachers and students, adding $448 million for instructional programs, over the first two years alone. New funding that went to Eudora was most heavily dedicated to personnel to maintain and enhance the most effective research-based programs in the district, such as individualized instruction, small class sizes and teacher collaboration.

Download a full report of how the state dollars have been spent in Eudora, compared to districts across the state, in the time since the finance settlement.

Contact your elected officials

You are invited to share your views with those elected to represent us in Topeka:

Kansas Senate
Sen. Tom Holland
tom.holland@senate.ks.gov

Kansas House of Representatives
Rep. Anthony Brown
anthony.brown@house.ks.gov

Kansas State Board of Education
Janet Waugh
JWaugh1052@aol.com