A bill introduced by the Kansas Senate Committee on Ways and Means, SB 71, would cut $362,671 from Barton County USD’s 428, 431 and 355 current school budget.  It would do this by altering the way supplemental general state aid is calculated.   
A legislative alert sent out by Women for Kansas to the media stated, “This cut would disproportionately hurt poorer school districts because this part of the formula is designed to help them.”
According to USD 428 Superintendent Brad Reed, this bill is a recalculation of how the state will match Local Option Budget funding.  In the fall of 2014, the courts ordered the state to increase funding for education, and the state followed through by providing an additional $129 million in supplemental funding which districts would receive based on a formulation that took into account each district’s LOB and number of pupils in the district the previous year, and the relative wealth of each district in the bottom 82 percent of the state.  
The changes to the formula are basic.  It uses the current year’s number of pupils, and it adds all the districts, even the wealthiest, into the equation for ranking each district.  This will in effect make the size of the supplemental state funding pot smaller --by $39,098,023.
And depending on what a district’s percentage of the pot was, it could make a significant difference in how much money each district will receive for the second half of the current school year.  
For Great Bend’s USD 428, which would lose $209,059 in supplemental state aid, it will not be a matter of life or death, Reed said.  Still, with the funding already budgeted for since before school started in the fall, it will mean one of two things.  Either the district will not be able to buy something or some money will not be able to be transferred over.  
Other districts in the state will have a harder time compensating for cuts of this size.  
“We will lose over $75,000,” according to USD 431 Superintendent Bill Lowry, who responded to the Tribune’s inquiry by email.  “Not as much as Great Bend or Ellinwood, but a higher percentage.”
“This isn’t good for education, and it’s not good for Kansas,” Reed said.  “And, it’s illegal--in direct opposition to what the court ordered last spring.”
A hearing by the Committee on Ways and Means on SB71 was postponed last Wednesday and will be held today.  
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