“Unprecedented” is how KSBA Governmental Relations Director Eric Kennedy describes the upcoming 2018 session of the General Assembly, and he doesn’t mean it in a good way.
That word may also have been used to describe the last legislative session, when Republicans took control of the House for the first time in a century, but it is also appropriate now due to the weight of major issues facing school boards in the session starting Jan. 2.
As this issue of the Kentucky School Advocate went to press, a pension reform special session appeared unlikely, but, as Kennedy notes, even without that issue, the regular session holds a trio of financial pressures that do not bode well for public education.
“At the risk of sounding like a broken record, this session may be unprecedented,” he said. “Now, because of pension obligations, tax reform and a very tight budget, all converging in the same regular session, it will be equally historic.”
Not surprisingly, KSBA’s No. 1 legislative priority focuses on funding issues vital to local school support. The Consensus Forecasting Group, which consists of several independent economists charged with estimating the amount of state tax revenues that will form the basis for the state budget, recently reduced the level of expected receipts for the current fiscal year. Because of that, Kennedy said, “we fully expect the 2018-20 budget to be the most dire since the great recession began in 2008.” And this time, there will be no federal stabilization money to plug the budget hole.
Because of this, and compounded by the need to plow resources into shoring up the pension funds, Kennedy said the legislature likely will look to cut one of the primary areas that hasn’t already been cut to the bone: public education, where base SEEK funding has mostly been protected until now.
The impact of a SEEK cut would be harmful to every classroom in the state, but would also vary by district, “because to a large extent, a sizeable reduction to base SEEK will harm less affluent districts more, since more of their total revenue is state funding from the SEEK program,” he said. “The gap between rich and poor districts will be exacerbated any time you cut the total amount of state money being allocated through the SEEK formula.”
How would this look at the school level? The effects could take the form of reductions in force, which could mean larger class sizes in the case of teachers; or, say, longer bus rides in the case of bus drivers. Other possibilities include pay cuts, dialing back full-day kindergarten, sharing personnel and services among districts through interlocal agreements, or even district mergers.
“First and foremost,” Kennedy said, “when you have a lot of districts that have already made a lot of budget cuts over the years to all of the things that are nice to have, you are down to cutting the things that you really need to have to provide an education.”
Any cuts also would impact the state Board of Education’s recently established long-term goals to reduce achievement gaps. “And it remains to be seen if that means we just plateau where we are or we backslide and lose the ground we’ve all worked so hard to gain over the past 30 years,” Kennedy said.
Despite this unpromising forecast, KSBA’s legislative platform is topped by a request to increase base SEEK funding to restore student equity across districts; and to:
• Provide money for all-day kindergarten and preschool for 4-year-olds up to 200 percent of the federal poverty level.
• Fully fund district transportation costs.
• Protect learning and results services (LARS) programs such as family resource/youth services centers and extended school services.
• Appropriate the full actuarially required contribution amount to the Teachers’ Retirement System, as determined by its actuary.
Given the situation, it may appear quixotic for KSBA to focus on additional funding – not so, Kennedy said: “We fully realize the situation the state is in financially and we are fearful that drastic cuts may be facing our students. However, we cannot fail to advocate for the levels of adequate funding we believe we need to serve our kids and provide the education they deserve, regardless of those budget considerations.”
Other KSBA 2018 legislative priorities
• Reform school-based decision making councils, establishing clearer lines of authority to prevent the ambiguities that have sometimes arisen. This reform includes allowing superintendents to select principals after consulting with the school council.
• Tax reform that represents a balanced approach to increased revenues in a way that has broad tax bases, allowing for reasonable tax rates. “We cannot afford to create any new tax deductions, tax credits or tax exemptions,” KSBA Governmental Relations Director Eric Kennedy said.
• Adjust tenure laws to allow for possible loss of tenure as part of a professional development corrective action plan.
• Amend the teacher tribunal process to ensure timely due process hearings that are fair to all parties, including students. Kennedy acknowledges that while this had been picking up steam, after the pension reform twists and turns, “it perhaps doesn’t have the likelihood we had hoped it would have.”
• Look at ways to help fund local school construction in a way that is fairer to all districts across the state.