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Ty Masterson’s not concerned, and Sen. Donovan implies they’ll just cut more spending. We’re very concerned. “Citing a sluggish recovery from the recession, risk inherent in the governor’s tax plan and uncertainty over the Legislature’s ability to keep cutting spending, one of the nation’s two major debt rating agencies downgraded Kansas’ credit rating Thursday. ‘The downgrade reflects Kansas’ relatively sluggish recovery compared with its peers, the use of non-recurring measures to balance the budget, revenue reductions resulting from tax cuts which have not been fully offset by recurring spending cuts, and an underfunded retirement system for which the...

“ALEC’s Tax and Fiscal Policy task force, headed by Altria/Phillip Morris’ Amanda Klum and New Hampshire State Rep. Ken Weyler, added a Joint Education Finance Working Group at this week’s meeting [May 1-2 in Kansas City]. Why is a tax task force led by a cigarette lobbyist forming an education subcommittee? Perhaps to advance tuition ‘tax credit’ policies to subsidize charter and religious schools, a scheme dubbed ‘neo-vouchers’ by critics. ‘With conventional vouchers, the state effectively bundles tax revenue and distributes it as vouchers. With neo-vouchers the taxpayer and the nonprofits play that role, while the state backfills...

Last year, we opposed the third grade retention bill in the Kansas legislature. We saw it as an ALEC bill that, like many ALEC bills, looks good at first glance but would fail to solve the problems it sought to address while creating additional harmful consequences. We were accused of failing to support students. Since it was an ALEC bill, North Carolina passed it last session. Here’s how it’s playing out. “These problems have emerged because Read to Achieve is a political rather than educational program. It is a superficial ‘high standards’ measure that produces headlines but diverts...

This isn’t good news for the future of school funding in Kansas. “Tax revenue in April dropped 45 percent from a year ago, the Kansas Department of Revenue announced Wednesday. The state’s revenue for the year is $92.9 million less than projected earlier this month.” Read more here: http://www.kansas.com/2014/04/30/3431703/kansas-revenues-off-92-million.html#storylink=cpy...