By NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — Once the Kansas House returns from the turnaround break this week, discussions will begin on an education bill that has rolled together most of the major issues for K-12 into one piece of business.
"The bill now includes the budget or the funding for the Department of Education, which is all the aid to local school districts, so it's the funding," said Mark Tallman with the Kansas Association of School Boards. "It also extends the state mill levy, which is part of the way schools are funded. That has to be done every two years. Then, it contains two new provisions dealing with private school aid, which has been a big topic this session. Finally, there's provisions dealing with remote learning. Of course, the whole issue of how schools have dealt with the pandemic has been a big topic."
The question that still needs to be resolved is whether putting so much legislation together gains overall votes or loses them.
"It's always an issue in legislative strategy, do you put a lot of things together in hope that parts of it are popular enough to get enough votes to maybe get some things not as popular, or, if you put too much in one, does it just sink the whole thing?," asked Tallman.
There is still the floor amendment process to go through in the House, plus any adjustments the Kansas Senate might choose to make.
"When you throw in the hurdle of getting what the Governor would agree to, what she would sign and the fact that there could be a majority of legislators that say, we've got to pass a budget," Tallman said. "The deadline may be, will a majority of legislators kind of want these other pieces to pass a budget, even though there might not be two-thirds support to do that. We could be a long way from resolving this."
The specifics on when the education budget bill might be on the floor have not been released as of Monday.