Following the educrats example

A letter to the editor in today's Topeka Capital-Journal has inspired me to follow the educrats example rather than do what they say. Kathy Cook, director of Kansas Families for Education, advocates for increased taxes...sorry..."revenue enhancements"...to balance the budget and stop any cut to education that might be considered.

It's really too bad the education lobby has chosen a tax cheat to advocate for higher taxes to keep the sacred education funding cow. As Wichita Liberty pointed out before, Kathy Cook hasn't exactly been the good citizen she wants everyone else to be. Seems she's had some problems paying her property taxes.

I certainly don't know her situation and honestly I don't really care. Under normal circumstances, I could care less which people pay their property taxes and which don't. That's between them and the tax man. But for goodness sakes, don't come to me, a decent, taxpaying citizen, for more money for your pet projects that have already seen nearly a 50% increase in funding over just a five year period when you yourself are not willing to pay up. It's hypocrisy at its worst.

Cook is exactly the kind of person that will likely benefit from Legislator's new tax "amnesty" program to fix the budget gap. The very people who want to tax me to death for their pet projects get to cheat on their taxes and then never pay any consequences.

The cuts are huge, just huge! They're ginormous I tell you!!

"The cuts are huge, just huge, and beyond the ability of schools to absorb," he said. "And the legislature knows it's violating Montoy."

That's the assessment of Alan Rupe who lead the charge to sue the state of Kansas for more education funding. If you've even wanted to know how divorced from reality the educrats are, give today's Dodge Globe article a read.

Rupe went running to the press today because he knows that some kind of education cut is coming. The cuts proposed by the House and Senate are much, much less than any other agency has been asked to absorb. Of course, that means nothing to Rupe.

"The court didn't rule that the constitutionally-mandated right to an education changes with the size of the state budget," said Rupe, a partner in the Wichita law firm of Kutak Rock, LTD. "It ruled that the state was in violation of that mandate, and must provide an adequate education to every Kansas child, period. Since the court never actually approved the legislature's actions, and since it's clear the legislature is willfully violating its constitutionally-mandated obligations, the court has an obligation to take back jurisdiction."

In other words, it doesn't matter than K-12 spending makes up more than half the budget. And it doesn't matter that the state is going broke because its citizens are going broke, not making as much income as they did before and not buying as many things as they did before. All that matters is his twisted view of the Kansas Constitution.

I was at a loss for words at his complete break from reality.

The cuts are NOT too much for schools to absorb. And with new evidence that schools are sitting on $1.36 BILLION, how can someone actually say that schools need MORE money when everyone else is going broke? If schools can't deliver a quality education in Kansas after a less than 5% cut, then our education system has many more problems to solve than just money.

Further, it looks to me that Rupe just flat lied to the Dodge Globe.

"They (the Legislature) seem to have just eliminated their ability to raise taxes," he said. “Meanwhile, the cuts to the schools are huge, and, in fact, return the education funding to pre-Montoy levels."

I'm going to ignore that first part for now. Anyone who believes that even a 5% cut to education would return school spending to pre-Montoy levels is a liar. Since 2003, education spending has increased 53%. In total, the Montoy case increased education spending by more than $1 billion. The $100 million or so that is being looked at pales in comparison to the hikes in spending of the past four to five years. Mr. Rupe, you are a liar.

Now, back to that first part, where he says the legislature can't raise taxes. Is that why your running to the court, so you can mandate a tax increase on your own? Is that that kind of state we live in now? Have we regressed back to taxation with representation? If the court reopens the case and orders additional increases in education spending, that's exactly where we'll be.

Lack of coverage on school funds story not hard to figure out

Yesterday I highlighted an investigative story from the Flint Hills Center on just how much money schools are sitting on at the same time they come to legislators and ask for more. The report was also discussed by Kansas Meadowlark, Wichita Liberty and Kansas Liberty. No other news outlet in the state has discussed where taxpayer money is being spent (or not spent) on education.

And it's not at all surprising. It's hard to say there isn't a bias in the media when they ignore well researched, thoughtful investigative journalism such as what the Flint Hills Center published yesterday. For all the talk of the death of investigative journalism, I'm beginning to believe more and more that "investigative journalism" has been dead a long time already. Newspapers like the Wichita Eagle and Kansas City Star are only interested in journalism if it involves shoving a camera in someone's face or embarrassing someone they don't like.

It's been speculated that with the financial trouble the newspaper industry finds itself in that someday soon they may be replaced with not-for-profit papers or independent investigative reporters. That's basically what was done at the Flint Hills Center. However if the newspaper industry will simply continue on the same path it's been on for the past who knows how many decades, there's little point in making our free press financially free as well. Quite honestly, unless these new founded "non-profit" papers are interested in doing hard hitting journalism, I'd rather see them just go bankrupt.

And the silence doesn't even make sense. As I read the report schools themselves are not a fault. It's a bad system set up by Topeka that has encourage financial behavior on the part of districts that's cause the rat-holing of such large sums of cash. Don't districts want to have access to that money? Don't districts want the flexibility to spend that money as they wish? Or are they so hungry for more tax dollars that they're willing to ignore $1.36 billion just sitting on the table?

Kansas schools sitting on $1.36 billion

Did you hear that? No? I did. It's the cry of the educrats. "We need money! The children will come out at dumb as Karl Rove if you cut even one dime from our budget! Oh, oh, oh the humanity! We're so hard up for cash even on penny less and we'll have to shut down half the schools, sell all the computers and start teaching with chalkboards again!"

Yes, the educrats are ramping up to save the sacred cow called education funding. That's why a new study by the Flint Hills Center is such bad news. Turns out they've been sitting on quite a sum of cash for a while. $1.36 Billion to be exact. That's billion with a "B."

In fairness, it's not all their fault. In the state's quest to make sure programs are effective, they've forced districts into sequestering money into 26 different funds. And because anything left over in their general fund is subtracted from their next disbursement from the state, anything left over is moved into one of those funds. And quite honestly I can't blame them. If someone told me I was going to be punished with less funding next year simply because I was responsible and didn't spend as much as was budgeted this year, I'd move the money too. But once it goes in, it doesn't come back out. So now over $1 billion is just sitting there, waiting to be used.

The report comes at a critical time for the state. Faced with a nearly $400 million shortfall, legislators are looking to cut whatever they can. The problem arises when they try to go after the biggest part of the budget, K-12 education. Now with nearly $1.36 billion in found money, are legislators willing to cut K-12 knowing that the resources are there for districts to provide the same level of education they always have? I think there will be an attempt, but educrats will be quick to fight back.

Some of the issues to be raised will be the variability of funds across districts. Some are flush with cash, like Wichita and Johnson County schools. Others have significantly less. How do you redistribute money equally between these schools while avoiding the ire of the Supreme Court?

And the money is in special funds. I'm sure educrats will be quick to point out that money should be spent on the programs the fund was set up for. Normally I'd agree, but the assessment depends on how much of that money was originally earmarked for that fund and how much was moved in just to avoid future cuts to general funds. What a mess to figure out.

It's sticky issue and one that needs to be dealt with in the next session. Current funds need to be used before coming to the taxpayers for more. At the very least, lawmakers need to institute uniform accounting practices between districts. After all, how can the state ensure equal funding if everyone counts their change differently?