We don’t think people fully understand how much the Special Education shortfall is currently hurting our schools and the children they serve and how much worse it would get under a Ty Masterson governorship.
From Moderate Kansas
“An inconvenient truth: decisions made in Topeka can drive up your property taxes, even when local officials get the blame. Special education is a clear example. Federal law requires public schools to provide special education to eligible children with disabilities. Those services are not optional. A local school board cannot drop them because the Legislature falls short.
Kansas law sets the benchmark at 92% for the states obligation to cover special education costs. The budget passed this year funds 65.3% of those costs in FY 2027. Local school districts are already covering a gap of about $440 million a year by shifting money out of general classroom funds. That is close to $1,000 per student to make up the gap.
The cost does not disappear when Topeka refuses to cover its share. It lands in your community. Districts cut elsewhere, face pressure to raise local property taxes where they can, or do both. School boards do not have the state’s income and sales tax options. They only have the ability to tax your property.
Ty Masterson has been Senate president since 2021 and previously chaired the Senate budget committee. He helped shape the budgets behind this gap. Now he is campaigning on property tax relief while blaming local governments for standing in the way. He cannot claim credit for fiscal leadership in Topeka and then disclaim the costs those decisions push onto everyone else.
Before giving him the governor’s office, Kansans should ask a plain question: What services would he cut, and who pays for what the state stops funding?
We cannot afford Brownback remastered. Real property tax relief starts with the state meeting its own funding responsibilities, and with revenue sources that do not keep shifting the bill onto homeowners.
Sure, hold local officials accountable but hold state leaders accountable, too. State leaders are in a position to find alternative revenue sources and your local school boards are not. Nor do they have ways to increase economic development to expand the tax base.
The buck does not stop at the school board just because Ty Masterson wants it to. He’s masking the truth and blaming your local school board for his poorly designed budget and lack of problem solving capacity.”
Originally posted on facebook on October 4, 2026