Bipartisan school budget will increase special education funding by $75 million in Kansas

Kansas lawmakers have passed a bipartisan budget for K-12 public education that includes an increase in special education funding.

Senate Bill 387 passed the House 115-2 and the Senate 35-2 on Friday. Legislators saved the school budget for veto session after not finding a compromise until the last night of regular session.

The budget is an increase of $75 million for special education and a total of $303 million in new money for schools, said Rep. Kristey Williams, R-Augusta and the chair of the K-12 budget committee.

"Please know the only districts that might receive less money, it is only if they have a significant reduction in enrollment," said Sen. Molly Baumgardner, R-Louisburg.

Rep. Valdenia Winn, D-Kansas City, said the bill picked up support after the removal of a "poison pill." The controversial provision in previous versions of the legislation would change the SPED formula to reclassify local taxpayer revenue as part of the state's funding obligation

Williams said "it doesn't seem right" to her that the state doesn't get to count the locally raised money, "but it is part of the process of compromise."

The budget does still includes a policy piece to require local option budget funds intended to be used for special education to actually be spent on special education. Schools were already doing that, Williams said, but now the related money transfers will be required by law. She said that policy change boosts transparency.

"There will be a mandatory transfer, but it won't be counted as state aid," Frank Harwood, the deputy education commissioner, told the Kansas State Board of Education earlier this month. "That's important because counting it as state aid would have reduced the state's special education obligation without putting any more money into it."

Williams said the state is constitutionally funding education, including special education, but acknowledged that the budget doesn't meet a statutory requirement of covering 92% of excess funds.

More: Special education task force finally meets. Will Kansas schools get more money?

The school budget's $75 million for SPED leaves it to the state board of education to determine how it is used.

Harwood had said the Kansas State Department of Education's view is "it's not the state board's responsibility to develop a funding mechanism."

"We have made it a point over the years to say you stay in your lane and we stay in ours — and that's not our lane," said state board member Jim Porter, R-Fredonia, about the board determining how to distribute SPED funds. "If in fact we're supposed to do that, I would like to say no."

Baumgardner said lawmakers will put a proviso in the omnibus budget with more direction to the state board on how exactly to use the money.

"The last thing we want, to serve our kids, to serve our teachers, is to have $75 million sitting there and not being used," Baumgardner said. "So when we vote on our omnibus bill there will be a proviso that spells out explicitly how that money will be distributed. We're not going to leave to chance what the state board of education might or might not direct."

More: More money can't be the only answer but can help improve K-12 schools, Kansas audit finds

How did Topeka legislators vote?

Here's how Topeka legislators voted on the bill:

Yea: Republican Sens. Brenda Dietrich, Rick Kloos and Kristen O'Shea; Republican Reps. Jesse Borjon, Ken Corbet and Kyle McNorton; and Democratic Reps. John Alcala, Kirk Haskins, Vic Miller, Tobias Schlingensiepen and Virgil Weigel.

Nay: None.

Jason Alatidd is a Statehouse reporter for the Topeka Capital-Journal. He can be reached by email at jalatidd@gannett.com. Follow him on X @Jason_Alatidd.

This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: Kansas lawmakers increase special education funding in school budget