BonnerSprings.com

Kansas Gov. Mark Parkinson last week announced budget cuts of 2 percent in state aid to public school districts and colleges and universities.

For the state, this will mean approximately $54 million in total education cuts. For the USD 204 in Bonner Springs and Edwardsville, this will mean an additional $200,000 in cuts in general state aid to be added onto a decrease in the 2009-2010 fiscal year already totaling more than $1 million. Tami Koppang, director of business and finance services, said she wouldn’t know any specifics until after the Board of Education resumes session in mid-July, but she said cuts could go to such programs as summer school and after-school tutoring.

“That’s gonna have to mean some programming cuts somewhere across the line,” she said.

Kansas public schools were expected to receive $4,280 in base state aid per pupil for the 2009-2010 fiscal year but, with this additional cut, will now only receive $4,218 in aid. An update released by the Kansas Association of School Boards said this amount was well below what was received in the 2005-2006 school year – the year after an order by the Kansas Supreme Court that schools receive funding increases.

“The cuts are designed to close a shortfall in the current fiscal year, 2009-2010, estimated at $160 million,” the update said as to why the 2 percent cut was essential.

The 2 percent cut is an across-the-board reduction Parkinson made to almost all departments, commissions and other agencies in the state of Kansas, including schools for the blind and deaf and departments of labor and education.

Though nowhere near the hundreds of millions in cuts to the Los Angeles school district this year, Superintendent Robert Van Maren compared the worsening situation in USD 204 to that of California.

“How about we are beginning to feel like (Gov.) Arnold (Schwarzenegger) in California,” he said in an e-mail, adding, “I hope this is the last cut, but I fear it is not.”

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