The Kansas Supreme Court once again heard oral arguments in the Gannon school funding case, this time dealing with adequacy.
The question that must be answered— is Kansas spending enough money to provide all students in the state with a suitable education, as required by the constitution.
Kansas spends nearly $4.1 billion a year on its 286 school districts.
Solicitor General Stephen McAllister is representing the state. Wednesday, he argued that amount is sufficient.
The Kansas City, Kansas, Dodge City, Hutchinson and Wichita school districts are represented by Alan Rupe. On Wednesday, he argued the state is hundreds of millions of dollars short each year of fulfilling its constitutional duty to give every child a sufficient education.
Background
The three districts sued in 2010, contending legislators were not providing enough aid to give every child a suitable education and that certain kinds of equalization aid for poorer school districts had been cut off.
A lower-court panel agreed with the school districts. The state appealed.
The Kansas Supreme Court decided to split the lawsuit into two parts, to handle them at different times. First, the justices addressed the equity portion. Now the justices will address the adequacy portion, which is expected to be more complicated and costly.
Equity Portion
The state Supreme Court found legislators were not funding schools equitably and gave lawmakers a deadline to fix it or threatened to cut off funding for schools, ultimately forcing a shut down.
Lawmakers attempted to pass a solution during their regular session but the court ruled their first attempt unconstitutional.
Governor Sam Brownback called the legislature into a special session on June 23. Four days later, lawmakers passed and bill and Brownback signed it.
The new law is expected to cost the state $38 million.
Both sides had an hour to present their case beginning at 9 a.m. on Wednesday.
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