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Here’s a good explanation of what’s wrong with the budget bill the House passed and the legislative response to Gannon from Rep. Melissa Rooker’s newsletter. Legislative Power to Appropriate The governor has the authority to make unilateral cuts to the budget if the balance is projected to fall below zero. However, this bill expands that authority if the ending balance falls below $100 million, which is essentially unlimited power since we are currently there. We granted this to the governor last summer, but included a provision to protect K-12 funding from those cuts. This time, the bill does...

Senate President Susan Wagle said there is no rush in writing a new school funding formula. We wish they would stop spending so much time on unimportant and harmful education policy and focus on creating a new formula which meets the needs of our students. We would also like to point out that the old formula was repealed a year ago, and more progress should have been made by now. “But the president of the Kansas Senate said Friday that it’s unrealistic to expect lawmakers to devise a new school funding system in the remaining weeks of the...