By NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — Mark Tallman, Vice President for Advocacy with the Kansas Association of School Boards, knows that the cash balances that school districts carry are always going to be an issue with the Kansas Legislature as they try to make budget priorities. Tallman says there are three main reasons districts hang on to money.
"A big thing school districts, many, spend money on, is to make bond payments," Tallman said. "To do that, you collect the taxes in one fiscal year, at least in part, to make a payment the next year, so you have those kind of dollars on hand. Another reason is when you're saving up for an expense. Maybe instead of having a bond issue and having to go into debt and pay interest to repair your roofs, for example, or do something, many districts use their capital outlay fund to put money, or they put money in reserve or save up money for a new school bus purchase or to buy new textbooks on schedule. The final thing is simply contingencies. You want to have money so if you have an unexpected expense, or an unexpected drop in revenue, you have dollars available."
Government finance experts say those contingencies should account for about two months of the district's regular bills.
"The Legislature has not given any guidance as to what is too high or too low," Tallman said. "Ballpark numbers seem to be about where we would expect statewide, but there is a big difference. Some districts are much higher than what we might expect, and some are a bit lower. That's one of those local control issues."
Local control is something that is always an issue with the legislature, too.
"We don't believe there is anything to indicate that school district cash balances are unreasonable, but we acknowledge that is, in part, a judgment call. Our view is, if you're going to give that authority to local elected officials to make their own decisions, you're probably going to have to accept that you're not always going to agree with what those are. The question is, is there evidence that those decisions are so far out of bounds that there's a problem? We don't see that."
The legislature reconvenes with its new members in January.