The next time you hear our schools are overfunded, remember this example of chronic underfunding we’ve experienced and are just starting to escape.
“The state’s budget woes fueled routine underfunding of the formula guiding Kansas appropriations for special education in K-12 public school districts and made it tougher to afford specialized teachers to work with students who were gifted or had a disability, a state audit said.

“The analysis revealed lack of compliance from 2012 to 2017 with a Kansas law requiring the state to cover 92 percent of each school district’s special education costs not met by federal allocations or base state aid. Auditors said the driving force during the period was then-Gov. Sam Brownback’s strategy of restraining state spending on special education, sometimes called categorical aid, without jeopardizing flow of federal dollars.

“‘As a result in school years 2015 through 2017,’ the auditors said, ‘categorical aid was only funded at 78 percent to 81 percent.’”
https://www.cjonline.com/…/kansas-auditors-document-states-…

Originally posted to Facebook on 01/05/2019.