Carryover Cash and Consolidation Hot Topics Before Kansas Board of Education
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Kansas Department of Education officials told the state board of education they’re expecting more funding cuts and discussed ways to help stretch this year’s budget, including school consolidations and spending unencumbered cash left over from last year’s operating funds.
District unencumbered cash balances were a recurring topic and one board member commented, “Please, lets stop talking about $1.3 billion in unencumbered funds.” Actually, that was last year’s number.
This year total unencumbered funds grew to almost $1.5 billion. The portion in operating funds totaled $699 million and Deputy Commissioner of Education Dale Dennis told board members districts can access most of that amount. Districts can spend the operating funds carried over from last year by spending them down and not replenishing the funding category from the district’s general fund. “If you wanted to run balances down in funds just don’t transfer money over there.”
When asked during a break in the meetings if spending the carryover would be a better decision than laying off teachers and increasing class size, Dennis said, “Districts can spend it down. It’s a local decision.” Dennis said districts accumulated the unencumbered funds for use in lean times.
It will take a gambler’s nerve though. The consensus committee estimated that tax revenues will pick back up in the second half of fiscal year 2011, leaving districts with lesss cushion if they spend the carryover cash and revenues don’t return to pre-recession levels.
Dennis also presented summaries of four school consolidation studies done between 1992 and 2007. Board member Walt Chappel, District 8, Wichita, said he’s heard presentations by “experts” saying consolidation won’t work and unfortunately the Legislature simply agrees with them.
Chappel told Dennis that none of the consolidation studies mentioned produced a district large enough that it wouldn’t be a target for further consolidation. Chappell said he wants to discuss real consolidation in Kansas where more than 85 percent of school districts have fewer than 2,000 students. “We need to look for ways it can work rather than why it can’t be done.”
Chappel pointed out a 2003 study by Kennedy and Little that said the state could save $1,500 to $2,000 per student through consolidation, a total of $300- to $400 million per year in potential savings since 2004
Any steps toward consolidation this year wouldn’t produce savings for at least three years. Kansas law allows consolidating districts to receive state funding allotments for both districts for three to five years after joining, depending on the size of the district.
Posted under Education, News, Taxes.
Tags: Dale Dennis, KSBOE, KSDE, Walt Chappel
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6:13 pm on November 24th, 2009
There’s a lot to debate — or correct — in Levi’s post linked in the trackback below, including the implication that Yoder politicized the discussion. Ad hominem attacks against Corkins and Chappel do nothing to evaluate the substance of their suggestions.
As for his reference to a previous KansasWatchdog.org story, current state law does allow districts to receive three to five years of funding after consolidating, depending on the size of the districts, thus negating any immediate savings under CURRENT law. But the Legislature, being the law-making body, can change that law or, as Chappell suggested, put a sunset on it to encourage districts to consolidate now while there is an economic incentive beyond just being able to more efficiently provide for education.