Holding the K-12 budget hostage

Are Kansas Legislators willing to let school funding fail unless they get anti-public education policy in exchange?

During the first week of the Legislative Session, Governor Kelly introduced a budget that fully funded schools for the third year in a row. Yet, the Legislature adjourned for their spring break – after 10 weeks in session – without passing a K-12 budget. Why? Because the supermajority of conservative legislators can’t decide how much bad policy to include with it.

Yes, K-12 funding is being held hostage by those who want to transfer school funds to private institutions and end all school district boundaries. This is all part of the larger effort to undermine public schools with the intent to eventually privatize our schools in favor of for-profit corporate interests. 

The Legislature deliberately left behind a K-12 budget bill that includes full funding for our schools bundled with 19 pieces of policy. These policies include mandating open enrollment and allowing Kansas tax dollars to be used for scholarships to out of state students. Some of these policies never made it out of either chamber. Some of the policies were created in the middle of the night by a conference committee – three House members and three Senators. And, the majority of the policies only had proponents of conservative think tanks notorious for attacking public schools.

If passed, the Governor has ten days to decide whether to sign it into law, veto it, or let it become law without her signature. With typical budget bills, she can veto specific line items included in the budget. She cannot, however, veto policy pieces included within a budget. So there is no option for Governor Kelly to accept the school funding piece and reject the bad policy pieces. 

This is why we need a clean budget bill; a K-12 funding bill that is not tied to any bad policy. When Legislators return for veto session on April 25, they need to stop playing political games with our K-12 budget.