Representatives Discuss State Budget at Legislative Forum

On the evening of April 14, a budget-based legislative forum was held at Shawnee Mission West. House Representatives Jim Denning, Amanda Grosserode, Brett Hildabrand, Kelly Meigs and Greg Smith were present to answer the questions of the teachers and parents that filled the cafeteria.

Representative Denning began the forum by sharing a PowerPoint full of figures depicting budgetary concerns. These concerns included amount of debts, local vs    . state funding of schools, destination of tax payers’ money and many other statistics. This same PowerPoint can be found on any of the representatives’ respective websites.

After what the teachers found to be a confusing and crowded PowerPoint, the panel of representatives took questions from the teachers. However, they did not receive questions directly to avoid confrontations: questions had to be written down and approved before being answered. Several questions, including American History AP teacher, Vicki Arndt-Helgesen’s did not make it to the panel.

One of the questions that did make it to panel was why the state of Kansas doesn’t increase taxes to cover the short comings in school funding. Denning began by stating that a tax increase was completely “out of the question.” When teachers asked why, the representatives’ responded that “it’s not worth the loss of money.” According to the representatives’ PowerPoint, Johnson County alone provides 30 percent of the funding for the entire state––meaning that out of every 5 tax dollars from Johnson County, 4 dollars leave the county to fund other programs in other areas. Providing 19 percent of the K-12 students in the entire state, Johnson County only receives 12 percent of the  state education budget. Representative Amanda Grosserode stressed the fact that SMSD’s local funding is equal to the amount of state funding other cities, such as Dodge City and Wichita receive for their schools.

When asked why the state of Kansas won’t consolidate small school districts, the representatives rambled on about how the decision to consolidate has to come from within the school districts in question themselves. Denning claimed that if the state tried to force schools to consolidate, most people would be outraged because they don’t understand the difference between consolidating districts and closing schools. People wouldn’t comprehend that instead of closing one of the schools they would simple place both districts under one administration.

It appeared that the panel of representatives was stumped by almost every question the audience brought forward. The panel gave long-winded, speech-like answers, avoiding the questions and the facts at hand. The evasion of the direct questions frustrated the teachers so much they began to boo at the panel, throwing their hands up in frustration. Several teachers stood to address the panel directly, which earned them a scolding from the instigator and an ultimatum: whether they wanted to continue on with the questions, or to continue to shout their opinions. In response, a gentleman hollered that the panel should answer properly and nix the speeches.

At the end of the forum, many teachers left with more questions than answers. The crowd was frustrated with the panel, feeling that they had no solid answers to anything other than what they had typed up and included in their PowerPoint. In the end, a teacher described the meeting while she fanned herself with the program as being full of “hot bodies and a lot of hot air.”