Kansas House to run school finance bill

The Kansas House will run a school finance inflation fix that looks a lot like the plan originally proposed by Governor Laura Kelly and the State Department of Education.

“We are not going to make a change to a formula without really vetting that,” said Baumgardner. “To make a change on the fly is irresponsible.”

Baumgardner acknowledges that one of the concerns of House negotiators, which is obligating all future legislatures to a CPI based inflation adjustment is something worth looking at again in future sessions. The key to the Senate retaining the large part of its position was that the House did not pass its own funding plan before negotiations began.

“They were trying to take too many large bites out of the apple,” said Baumgardner. “They weren’t able to deliver that to their floor and so they don’t really know where they are, as far as that situation.”

Representative Kyle Hoffman believes Governor Kelly has had a stronger hand in this than it might appear.

“It became very apparent that the Senate looked to us like they were taking their cues from the second floor, from the Governor,” said Hoffman. “We decided that we’ll let them run their bill that they want to run.”

A vote is scheduled for Thursday.