BonnerSprings.com

It was clear Monday night that officials with USD 204 aren’t pleased with Gov. Sam Brownback’s proposed plan for future funding of public education.

Questions posed by patron Troy Thompson during the school board meeting asking the board to clarify certain aspects of the plan gave school officials an opportunity to share their thoughts on the subject.

Under Brownback’s proposed plan, limits on the amount of local option property taxes districts can levy to support themselves would be eliminated. Also eliminated, however, would be the “weighting” formula, which is used to provide districts with additional state funding in such areas as at-risk and bilingual education.

Superintendent Robert VanMaren said taking the weighting factors out of the equation would essentially amount to a raise for districts with few students who pose challenges, while districts like USD 204 that have a large population of minority and at-risk students would be “held harmless” but would receive no more funding from the state than what they receive now — a total of $3,780 per pupil, which is down $232 in per-pupil state aid from the state funding received by districts in the 2009-2010 year.

Charles Thomas, the district’s interim business and finance manager, said the purpose of the plan was to level the playing field for funding public education. But he said it would actually have the opposite result and would force districts to increase the taxes it imposes on patrons just to stay afloat.

“What happens with the governor’s plan is it permits districts to raise local property taxes as they wish in order to fund their educational systems, which is fine … if the district has a lot of money. You can do that with very little pain to the patrons,” Thomas said, noting that such districts are in nearby Johnson County. “In a poor district, it doesn’t work out that way … in Johnson County they have much higher property valuations. They can raise the amount of money with one mill that might take us 10 mills or 20 mills.”

Currently, school districts may increase through local property taxes an amount up to approximately 30 percent of their state aid.

If approved by the Legislature, Brownback’s plan wouldn’t go into effect until the 2013-2014 school year.

Board President Ray Cox’s reaction to the issue was to essentially say, “Don’t worry about it for now.”

“Until this thing gets through the Legislature,” he said, “there’s really no sense in looking at it.”

In other action Monday, the board:

• Unanimously approved the adoption of the agenda.

• Unanimously approved the minutes from the Dec. 6 meeting.

• Unanimously approved warrants totaling $868,096.

• Heard a brief budget update from Charles Thomas, interim business and finance manager. Thomas announced that the funding provided in the 2010-2011 school year through the Federal Jobs program, which was part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act stimulus, had taken a huge nosedive, going from more than $400,000 to only $6,000 this school year. He also said he expected the 2012-2013 year to be a “tight” budget year, but a slightly positive note was that there was no talk yet of cutting the current amount of state aid the district receives.

• Unanimously approved a motion to enter into a contract with Novak Birks PC for audit services in the amount of $17,000.

• Heard Superintendent Robert VanMaren announce that, in response to concerns raised by board member Patricia Welicky at the Dec. 6 meeting regarding the lack of technology in schools, the district had ordered two new mobile carts. The carts, which contain 30 laptops each, will go to Bonner Springs Elementary and Edwardsville Elementary. VanMaren said they cost a total of $18,000, which was spent out of capital outlay funds.

• Entered into a 20-minute executive session to discuss a disciplinary appeal involving a student. After unanimously approving a motion to close the executive session, the board unanimously approved a motion to support the hearing officer’s decision for disciplinary action. Superintendent Robert VanMaren, however, would not elaborate further on the matter, declining to give answers to questions regarding who the student in question was, what the incident that caused the action was, when the incident occurred or what the disciplinary action was. He said, because it involved a student, he legally couldn’t give any more information.

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