This article does a great job explaining where the money at issue in SB 71 came from, why it was proposed, how candidates took full advantage of the “increased funding” during campaign season and why taking it away midyear is problematic.

“But [the Gannon equity fix] didn’t really give districts more spending authority. It only altered the mixture of funding sources so that a greater percentage of the total pot would come from the state instead of local property taxes. And in Lawrence’s case, the sum total of all the changes lawmakers made would have been a cut of about $2 million in state funding.

“In the election-year pressure of 2014, many lawmakers wanted to be seen as having done more, so they made additional changes, and one of those was to give districts permission to raise the limit on how much revenue districts could raise locally, or their ‘local option budgets.’

“That allowed Lawrence to recoup about $1.4 million of the $2 million that it lost. To keep that funding for future years, a public vote was necessary. That’s what the January mail ballot decided.

“During committee hearings last year, lawmakers were given estimates of what the move would cost the state. But what nobody could accurately predict at the time was how school districts would respond to the changes, because districts don’t set their budgets for the new school year until August, three months after the Legislature adjourns.

“As it turned out, many local districts, including Lawrence, took advantage of the new funding available, and the actual cost of the changes in the LOB formula came in $34.3 million higher than lawmakers had anticipated.”

http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2015/feb/03/kansas-school-officials-say-funding-bill-would-cut/