spending

Is Kansas Spending Enough on Education? Judges Say No

January 1, 2015 by Daniel

TOPEKA, Kan. — A Shawnee County District Court consisting of a three-judge panel ruled on Tuesday that the state is not spending enough on its schools.

The state budget was a highly contested issue during the mid-term elections, and the aggressive personal income tax cuts put in place by Gov. Sam Brownback almost cost him re-election. This court ruling could complicate his effort to curb spending.

There is a little history to the Kansas courts stepping in and ruling that education spending wasn’t adequate enough. This goes all the way back to 1972 where a Johnson County District Court finds the Kansas public education funding system unconstitutional in Caldwell v. State of Kansas.

Since then, the state has been challenged on their education spending, and they have responded by an increase in spending on each account.

However, in recent years the state has been directed to use a per-pupil spending model starting at $4,492 per student. Current spending levels are down to $3,852 per student due to rising teacher pension costs. Add in those costs and the state is spending $13,269 per pupil.

In total, $3.4 billion is being spent on education by the state. And that number reflects a recent increase in funding in order to meet rising teacher pension costs. Spending within lower income district received an increase of $129 million for the year.

But that’s not liberal enough in the eyes of these three judges and that spending should be increased by an additional $548 million to $771 million a year.

In fact, this panel has declared in their 139 page ruling that it is “inadequate from any rational perspective of the evidence.”

They also stated that the state has failed to meet its obligations so declared in the Kansas Constitution. This is in reference to a more recent passing of the Rose standards contained in HB 2506, citing that the level of funding does not adequately provide “sufficient training or preparation for advanced training in either academic or vocational fields so as to enable each child to choose and pursue life work intelligently.”

Dave Trabert of Kansas Policy Institute says that the court failed to take into account that many districts within the state don’t have a method to measure the success of the Rosestandards. In fact, some districts have asked for “the development of a system to define and measure…” the Rose standards.

Also not taken into account by the court is that some districts are not spending all of their operating funds, and the inefficiency at which districts operate.

When asked, Gov. Brownback responded by saying, “I continue to believe that restructuring the school funding formula and implementing education policy reforms is critical not only to getting more money into our classrooms but also improving student achievement. I will be working with legislative leadership to address the best path forward.”

This article is posted with permission from ANM News.

What is the greatest fear of Army Chief of Staff Odierno?

October 22, 2013 by Daniel

It is reported that the greatest fear of Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno is combat readiness.

Army Chief of Staff Reveals Only Two US Army Brigades Now Combat Ready — photo credit: U.S. Army

This is of great concern when he says that there are only two combat-ready brigades right now.

Does it take away his faith that we don’t have the greatest fighting force? Probably not.

So what is the cause and what can be done?

Money! That is what he says the military needs.

They have been faced with continued budget cuts over the last few years, and future defense spending doesn’t look all too good either. (It takes too long to get funding!)

Our military continues to work with dated equipment. Is it proven? Yes. Does that mean that it is fully mission capable? Not entirely.

With aging equipment we see more failures. Something our troops don’t need!

Here’s what Odierno says they need:

“We need to make sure our soldiers have the best equipment possible,” Odierno said. “We need to make sure our individual soldiers have protective equipment, they have the right sights, they have the right weapons. … We need something to replace the Humvee, we need to replace the Bradley. We need to invest in our aviation systems — our UH-60s, our Apaches, our CH-47s. We need to make sure that in the complex environments we are going to operate in that we have a network that enables us to pass information very quickly down to the lowest element. We need all of it. The bottom line is we can’t afford all of it. So we’re going to have to make some tough decisions.” – via The Blaze

Detroit’s Debt Pales in Comparison to National Debt

August 5, 2013 by Daniel

Detroit’s Debt Pales in Comparison to the National Debt

Detroit is the poster child for economic decline. The city’s policies and politics over the past half-century should serve as a “do not” guide for policymakers across the country.

There’s a great deal lawmakers in Washington can learn. The first is understanding that Detroit’s demise was the result of big-government, liberal policies promoted by self-interested politicians and coercive public employee unions.

In the wake of America’s manufacturing decline, Detroit enacted policies that drove out businesses and residents. Rather than reduce the size of government as its population shrank, the city instead sought higher levels of government spending. City leaders acquiesced to unions by increasing employee benefits and ceding control and flexibility over employees.

To pay for it, Detroit continually increased taxes and engaged in prolific borrowing when the tax increases did not close the gap. And yet, despite the growth in government taxes and debt, Detroit’s citizens experienced ever-declining city services, the most troublesome result of which has arguably been the steep rise in crime.

A federal bailout of Detroit is not the answer.

via Heritage.org