Voucher Bill

SB 509 establishes the education opportunity tax credit to provide an income tax credit for taxpayers with eligible dependent children not enrolled in public school. It is the latest version of a Kansas voucher bill, and we expect the bill to be debated on the floor of the Senate this week. Educate Lawrence rejects all proposals to spend public tax dollars on private education.

Here are some talking points:

• People may choose not to send their children to public schools but they are not entitled to a rebate from the state for doing so.
  • We have parks, libraries, police and fire services, but people don’t get a tax credit if they don’t ever use them.
  • Public education is a public commitment and a civic responsibility that is shared by the entire population of the state, not just those who currently have children in public school.

• The costs of this bill are significant.
  • The bill has a $75 million cap, which automatically increases, so the fiscal note is deceptive.
  • Additionally it is not a cost savings because the state will now functionally be paying for students currently in private and home school, which are not currently a state budget item.
• There is no relationship in this bill between how much a family pays in state taxes for public K-12education and the size of their credit.
  • A family with more than one child in private school could easily receive more in tax credit than their total tax liability and significantly more than the share of their state taxes that goes to public education funding.
  • Therefore, we would be giving private and home school parents their tax dollars as well as money from other community members who have pooled their resources for their neighborhood school.

• There is no income limit in SB 509, so people who are perfectly capable of paying for their children’s private education would get a handout from the state. This is an improper diversion of state tax dollars.

• There is no link between this bill and actual expenditures on education expenses and no oversight to ensure that money is being spent on legitimate education expenses.
  • When parents spend their own money, the state has less of an interest in ensuring they make good choices, butsince this bill gives away tax dollars, the state needs to have more of an interest in ensuring that money is well spent.
  • As we have seen in Arizona, Florida and other states with voucher programs, allowing parents to spend these funds without sufficient rules and oversight results in wasteful and fraudulent expenditures.

Please write you Senator and Senate Leadership!

You can find your legislator here: https://pluralpolicy.com/open/

Contact information can be found here: https://www.usd497.org/Page/15665

School Nurse Bill

House Sub for SB 287 would hamper both the work of school nurses and school mental health providers. The bill prohibits providers from administering medication and diagnostic tests, and conducting ongoing behavioral health treatments, to a minor in a school facility without parental consent. The unintended consequences could keep school nurses from being able to assess the needs of our children in the school setting. The bill was placed into a Senate bill (a ‘gut and go’) that had already passed on the floor of the Senate, meaning that if the bill passes on the floor of the House it will not have a hearing in a Senate committee, but will go straight to Conference Committee.

The bill was written because of an incident that happened a few years ago when a Physician’s Assistant prescribed birth control to a 16-year-old (an act which is not illegal) without the knowledge of the parent. The clinic where it happened is associated with a school campus. The bill, as it currently stands, does not address Physician’s Assistants in a clinical setting or birth control prescriptions, it only limits healthcare providers in the school setting. During a ‘round table discussion’ of the bill health care associations, including school nurses, indicated that the bill was too broad.  

Please write your Representative with positive examples of our school nurses and ways they make our schools safer - and to vote against this bill.

Also, during the committee meeting Rep. Barth, from Baldwin City, stated that she has heard from parents about their children getting care without having parental consent in their schools. If you happen to know parents in Baldwin or nearby small towns represented by Rep. Barth, please encourage them to write Rep. Barth in support of their school nurses.

You can find your legislator here: https://pluralpolicy.com/open/

Contact information can be found here: https://www.usd497.org/Page/15665

School Funding and Special Education

Once again, the legislature has placed funding for education into a separate bill from the state budget and combined it with policy. The House K-12 Education Budget Committee placed their budget bill into House Sub for SB 387 (a ‘gut and go’ move), meaning that the budget will not be worked on the Senate side but will go straight to Conference Committee if it passes on the floor of the House.

The budget includes $77 Million for special education, but instead of using state funds to finance the allocation, it “counts” local tax dollars as state special education funding. This moves the burden from the state and onto local districts - which will then need to divert local tax money away from other district priorities.

A number of policy provisions were also added to the budget, including an 11-page amendment that puts At Risk funding in jeopardy. The bill is expected to be debated on the floor of the House on Tuesday.

Please write your Representative and ask them for a clean funding bill that fully funds special education.

You can find your legislator here: https://pluralpolicy.com/open/

Contact information can be found here: https://www.usd497.org/Page/15665