Gov. Sam Brownback announced late Tuesday morning that he will call back the legislature to Topeka for a special session on school funding.
“After discussion with Legislative Leadership, I have decided to call a special session to keep Kansas schools open, despite the Court’s threat to close them,” Brownback said in a press release. “It is distressing that the Kansas Supreme Court has put the schools and legislature of Kansas in this position over less than 1 percent of school funding.
“I will do everything I can to keep this session focused on education. I am working to arrange the particular dates of the session, which will occur later this month.”
On May 27 the Kansas Supreme Court rejected changes made by legislators earlier this year and said the school finance system remains unfair to poor districts. The justices gave lawmakers until June 30 to fix the remaining problems or face having schools remain closed.
Local legislators in Manhattan were hoping a special session on the issue would be called for when they spoke with KMAN last week.
Manhattan High School principal Greg Hoyt took issue with the governor’s “1-percent of school funding” claim on Twitter, where he retweeted State Senator Laura Kelly, who disagreed.
Despite Gov’s insistence Court’s quibbling over 1% of school finance, it’s really 25%. Total spending=$4B; LOB=$1B https://t.co/s7ztKkuo0Y
— Laura Kelly (@SenatorKelly) June 7, 2016
The post BREAKING: Brownback calls for special session on school funding appeared first on 1350 KMAN.
