School Funding

It's late, but I wanted to get this posted before I got to bed.

The Kansas House today took up debate on their version of the budget bill. If you remember, on Friday the appropriations committee sent a bill to the floor that would have cut K-12 school funding by $88 per student. The bill that came through debate this afternoon decreased that amount to "only" $66 per pupil. Amendments were brought forward that would have decreased that amount to the $33 per pupil cut that the senate bill stipulated, but those amendments failed along party lines. (Meaning republicans--including the representative from our district--voted for the larger cuts, democrats for smaller).

The House will have their final action on this bill tomorrow. From there it will go back to the Senate.

The department of education has released this document, which compares the cuts to each district in Kansas for the three proposals (Governor, Senate, and House). Keep in mind that these cuts are for the current fiscal year. This is money that the districts have been told they would get and have budgeted for.