NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — It is still early in the legislative session, but there are a few educational issues that Dr. Dawn Johnson at Hutchinson USD 308 is following in particular.
"I do think there is some local control that seems to be slowly disappearing for local school boards," Johnson said. "I think the idea that right of first refusal of buildings...if I had someone come into town and say, you know, we'd really love to take Midtown, buy Midtown from you, which is a building downtown, because it's a great historical building, we'd like to put an office there, right now, the state gets the right of first refusal to buy that building."
This could complicate the issues USD 308 is already facing regarding its buildings and their future use, especially if the district would want to combine their middle school grades and build new, but in a larger footprint than either of their current middle school facilities, it would make it hard to divest those buildings, if that were found to be useful. Also, the way that open enrollment is structured in the latest law is difficult for some districts.
"Open enrollment, we'd like to see that go back away," Johnson said. "Property taxes are tied to helping pay for public education. When you start having open enrollment, a little bit of that starts to become a little bit more nebulous and harder to make sure we're getting the right funding for schools."
In addition, there is the ongoing issue of special education underfunding, which all the districts Hutch Post has spoken to believe is a huge problem that takes money away from general education kids, as well, because of having to comply with federal mandates with mostly state money.
"For us, we spend about $11 million on Special Education," Johnson said. "We get reimbursed for that, according to the statute. We only get reimbursed $7 million for that. About $4 million that should be going to general fund, we're having to transfer those moneys over to pay for the costs that are not being covered by the state."
Hutchinson was one of the Schools For Fair Funding plaintiffs in the Gannon lawsuit. Johnson notes that even though the legislature appears on one hand to be complying with that decision specifically, they are undermining that funding by not following the Special Education statute the way it is written.
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