Truth Emerging on Unencumbered K-12 Education Funds
Print This ArticleWhat could Kansas do with an extra $743 million? That’s a question legislators and the governor-elect want answered.
Kansas K-12 schools had $1.567 billion in unencumbered or carryover cash on July 1 and as much as $743 million of it could be made available for discretionary spending by school districts, according to state government research.
Those numbers, released in November, came as a surprise to legislators who were told in April, during final 2011 budget deliberations, that schools’ carryover balances would be $1.156 billion, $411 million lower than they actually were on July 1.
Republican leaders in Topeka want to put some of the carryover money to use.
House Speaker Mike O’Neal (R-Hutchinson) told Kansas Watchdog:
“There’s plenty of money in the system to fund any perceived deficits in the next fiscal year. I don’t know that the schools need to spend all that money. But certainly, using their own argument that we are X dollars underwater, I can tell you that