TOPEKA, Kan. — The Kansas Supreme Court has rejected some education funding changes enacted by the Legislature earlier this year and threatened to prevent the state’s public schools from reopening for the new academic year if lawmakers don’t act by June 30.
The court ruled Friday on a new school finance law that revised parts of the state’s funding formula but resulted in no change in total funds for most of the state’s 286 school districts.
It was the third school finance law approved in as many years as Republican lawmakers hoped to keep the court from following through on a threat it made in a February ruling to shut schools down.
Kansas schools have either finished or are winding up the current academic year. The state’s inability to distribute more than $4 billion in aid to them would keep them from opening again in August, and summer programs would be canceled.
While many districts have cash reserves, the court’s opinion said that without an acceptable state funding system, schools ‘‘will be unable to operate.’’
The justices ruled that lawmakers failed to fulfill the court’s order in February that funding to poor school districts be improved.
Kansas House Speaker Ray Merrick called the decision ‘‘disgraceful’’ and accused the justices of ‘‘holding children hostage.’’ Republican Governor Sam Brownback said the court is engaging in ‘‘political brinkmanship.’’
‘‘The court has yet again demonstrated it is the most political body in the state of Kansas,’’ Merrick, a conservative Republican, said in an e-mail.
Lawmakers this year faced a budget crunch that followed massive personal income tax cuts and left most of the work of cutting spending and taking other deficit-closing steps to Brownback.
They also were hamstrung by strong political opposition to redistributing funds from wealthy school districts. But the court declared in its unsigned opinion that ‘‘political necessities’’ were irrelevant to its review.
The justices said that the legislators’ failure to fully comply with its earlier ruling — and not action by the court — would be to blame if schools remain closed. The court refused to sever education funding changes it found objectionable from others it accepted, rendering the entire school funding system invalid under the state constitution.
Kansas has struggled to balance its budget since the state slashed personal income taxes in 2012 and 2013 at Brownback’s urging in an effort to stimulate the economy — an experiment watched nationally.
Brownback hasn’t backed off his signature tax cuts, and enough lawmakers haven’t bucked him.
One of the districts’ attorneys, Alan Rupe, said it would cost the state between $17.5 million and $29.5 million during the 2016-17 school year to comply with the court’s latest order, depending on whether lawmakers want to prevent any districts from losing aid as they boost funding for poor ones.
Legislators aren’t scheduled to meet again this year except for a brief adjournment ceremony Wednesday, and it wasn’t clear what the Republicans who lead both chambers planned to do. Senate Democratic Leader Anthony Hensley called for lawmakers to approve additional spending Wednesday.
