On Monday (11th) and Tuesday (12th), the K-12 House Education Budget Committee spent over four hours bundling seven policy bills along with over 10 amendments to the education budget. Under the direction of Chairperson Kristy Williams, the committee remained consistent with past years and bundled policy and budget into a mega bill that will probably be heard next week in the House of Representatives.

The committee started by removing the contents of Senate Bill 387 and placing several House bills into the Senate bill. SB 387 was the Open Enrollment bill from the Senate. The House Committee removed the contents of the bill but left the amendments placed in the bill by the Senate.  

The House substitute for SB 387 now includes:

• HB 2514 - This is the House version of the Open Enrollment bill. There were 4 amendments added to the bill when it was finally completed. This is a bad bill but a couple of the amendments helped the bill. One such amendment would not require school districts to accept students not in good standing from another district.
• HB 2506 - Authorizing students enrolled in virtual schools to participate in KSHSAA activities.
• HB 2717 - Establishing requirements for the determination of virtual school state aid for adult students.
• HB 2594 - Establishing the Education Funding Task Force and abolishing the Special Education and Related Task Force. This [SERTF] task force had a single meeting just days prior at the start of this year's session. Representative Williams was on the task force but disagreed with its final report.
• HB 2489 - Limiting the legislative option to purchase school district buildings to buildings that were formerly used as attendance centers.
• HB 2650 - This a bill that had only one proponent speak in favor; the Kansas Policy Institute was the only proponent for this bill. It requires each school district to establish an at-risk student accountability plan in certain student sub-groups. One positive thing was it took out the requirement that 75% of the students score in levels 3 and 4 on the state assessment by 2030. However, there were amendments added that if a school does not meet the goals established the state can withhold at-risk funds and high density at-risk funds.  
• HB 2738 - This also is a bill that only had one proponent speak in favor. Again, Kansas Policy Institute was the only proponent while nearly 100 opponents provided testimony either in person or in writing. This is the bill that includes adding Local Option Budget revenue into calculations for state aid when considering special education funding. It also requires districts to transfer set amounts of cash reserves to special education.

All of the above bills were added to SB 387; once this was complete, the committee then added the K-12 Education Budget into the bill.

More information will follow on the specifics of the budget. However, two points of significant interest:

1. The committee did add $75 million in Special Education Funding. It is not known how considering the LOB in special education funding will affect the bottom line. One thing everyone should keep in mind if this bill is passed is that local taxpayers will be paying a higher portion of special education funding next year with their property taxes in the form of the LOB. This legislation is taking more from local taxpayers to fund SPED which should be the State’s responsibility.   

2. In the past few years the Legislature has provided $5 million in school safety grants that school districts could access via an application process. Last year, there were $14.4 million in requests from districts. Because of the $5 million funding limit, the money was prorated to the 188 school districts who applied for funds. There is to be a change this year on how the $5 million will be used.  The Legislature is establishing a 3-year pilot program that will use artificial intelligence to detect guns in schools. The concern expressed by certain committee members was the legislation names a specific company to be used in the pilot program. The company designated is ZeroEyes, a Pennsylvania based firm. There will be no other bids sought. Chair Williams stated there was not enough time to seek RFP’s (request-for-proposals) from other firms. Thus, ZeroEyes has been selected. There is also concern that a former leader from the House of Representatives is the CEO of ZeroEyes. 

As stated, other specifics of the budget will be upcoming. 

Next steps for the House substitute for SB 387: 

• The House will hear the bill in the full House of Representatives. We encourage you to contact your House representative and oppose this legislation. If passed, the next step is a Conference Committee meeting with Senate Education members (3 from the House Education, 3 from the Senate Education). It could be interesting since Senator Baumgardner (Chair of Senate Ed) has stated she is not a fan of the current special education formula, and if money is to go to special education, she wishes it be distributed based on the percentage of funds that are spent out of the district’s general fund to cover the cost of special education.   

Other education issues dealt with this last week (March 11-15): 

• On Wednesday (13th),  the House Education Committee had a Round Table discussion with superintendents and committee members. The round table discussion took 2 hours. 6 superintendents were involved; we would like to thank Cindy Couchman-Buhler, Justin Coup-Solomon, Darren Schroeder-Marysville, Brent Yeager-Olathe, Stu Moeckel-Eudora, and Adrian Howie-Hugoton, for giving their time also on spring break to share their thoughts with the committee. They did a great job. 
• On Thursday (14th), the Senate Education Committee passed the Blueprint for Literacy (which was discussed last week) out of their committee. It will probably go across the floor of the Senate next week. Also on Thursday, the House Tax Committee heard HB 2795. This bill was written to improve the Revenue Neutral Rate requirements that school districts must deal with. We would like to thank Superintendents Blake Vargas-Caney Valley, Justin Coup-Solomon, and Aaric Davis-Royal Valley, for taking time from their spring break to come to Topeka and testify. 
   

Looking to next week, there are a couple of events that will bring people to Topeka March 18-22. If any are in town for the Council of Superintendents or the KASB Day at the Capitol, I would encourage you to either come early or stay after and contact your Legislator to let them know your feelings on specific legislation. They need to hear from you! Have a great week.