Governor Brownback's Staff present School Finance Plan to the State Board of Education
Earlier this morning, Landon Fulmer, chief policy director to Governor Brownback, was back before the State Board of Education to provide more details about Excel in Education, a proposal to reform the K-12 education funding formula.
The proposal, as presented to the State Board of Education this morning, has been modified significantly since being presented at the Fall Regional Education Summits. Among the most recent changes to the proposal: elimination of the many block grants seen in earlier versions and elimination of the local option sales tax ("lost").
According to the information presented to the State Board this morning, the proposal would rely on three primary funding sources in the Governor's proposal: Base State Aid Per Pupil (BSAPP), Property Tax Equalization and the Supplemental Equalization Fund.
Key highlights of the proposal include:
- Payments to districts would be based on full time enrollment (FTE)
- Providing the BSAPP at the (current) statutory funding level of $4,492
- Multiplying the BSAPP by the FTE (including declining enrollment factor and counting kindergartners at 1.0)
- Eliminating all weighting categories
- Establishing a Base Line Amount that would determine how much funding each district gets and from what source
- Creating a 106% cap for equalization fund payments
- Offsetting local property taxes through the Property Tax Equalization Fund
- Equalizing district budgets through Supplemental Equalization
- Eliminating the cap on the Local Option Budget (LOB)
- Creating a two-year budget cycle
The proposal does not propose any changes to how special education is currently funded.
A REVISED summary of the Governor's plan, accompanied by a Q&A summary and the "run" are available online. Please note: This run was done by the Governor's office.
We will communicate additional information as it becomes available.
