Kansans Unwilling to Pay Higher Taxes for Schools under Current Conditions
Wichita, KS-- A new statewide public opinion survey conducted by The Research Partnership on behalf of Kansas Reporter shows that Kansans are strongly opposed to paying higher taxes for schools because total aid per-pupil is 26% higher now than five years ago, which is the baseline for school aid being increased under the Montoy decision.
Question 7e: Would you be willing to personally pay higher taxes to support Kansas school districts if the total funding per-pupil that goes to the school districts is up more than 20%?
81.3% No
11.3% Yes
7.3% Don't Know
Three key findings jump out from the data:
1) Kansans have been misinformed about school funding. Schools are receiving much more money per-pupil than assumed by most Kansans; most Kansans also believe that both State aid and Total aid are down or flat compared to five years ago but both categories have double-digit increases (state aid is +18% and total aid is +26% according to the Kansas Department of Education).
2) Kansans are overwhelmingly opposed to paying higher taxes to give more money to schools under current conditions. When not prompted with leading questions about avoiding further cuts to schools but simply asked if they would be personally willing to pay higher taxes based on several school funding scenarios, they rejected tax increases by margins of 39 to 70 points.
3) While one might expect those with children in school to be better informed about school funding, they are actually less informed than those with no children in school. They are also strongly opposed to paying higher taxes to give schools more money. They are more likely to say they would be willing to pay more if spending was down or the same as five years ago but very unwilling to pay if total aid is up.
Complete results are posted on the Kansas Reporter web site.
The survey was conducted by The Research Partnership (TRP), a market research and consulting firm based in Wichita. Telephone interviews were conducted with 600 participants between March 8 and March 27 of this year, giving the survey a margin of error of � 4.1%.
Dave Trabert, Kansas Policy Institute President, commented on the objectives of the survey. "Anecdotal experience indicated tremendous confusion over the amount of funding schools actually receive and how current funding levels compare to prior years. It's impossible to get reliable feedback on taxpayer willingness to pay higher taxes without first knowing whether taxpayers have an accurate understanding of school funding. If taxpayers are not adequately informed, questions such as "would you support higher taxes to prevent further cuts to schools" contain a built-in bias of each participant's perception of current funding. Accordingly, we first attempted to establish a baseline of public perception on school funding and then asked participants if they would be personally willing to pay higher taxes to give more money to schools under several funding scenarios."
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