A tax credit scholarship program for low income and special needs students is the state’s first real school choice program.  Our extensive research showing student achievement is much lower than media and the education establishment reports convinced legislators that this program is necessary. During the 2017 session, we led the fight to expand the program to more eligible donors to provide more educational opportunities to students.  School districts and teacher unions try to kill the program each year, but we defeated every attempt.

Many legislators credit our work in this area with influencing the 2014 State Supreme Court on school funding (Gannon v. State of Kansas).  KPI discovered that previous court rulings were based on deliberately-skewed research designed to inflate required funding.  The Court invalidated the ‘actual cost’ method of measuring adequate funding and adopted outcome criteria (the Rosestandards) in its place.  The Court also agreed with our position that all funding sources should count. This work paved the way for the elimination of the dysfunctional school funding formula in 2015.

The dysfunctional 1992 school funding formula was eliminated in 2015 and a temporary two-year block grant system was put in place. The legislature failed to take advantage of this opportunity as the new formula implemented for the 2018 school year is remarkably like the old formula, whereby schools are not held to account for student outcomes and taxpayers’ money is not efficiently spent.

KPI discovered that about $600 million in state-mandated property tax was being recorded as Local aid instead of State aid.  Beginning in 2015, that money must be sent to the state for distribution, so it is properly recorded as State aid.

School districts are now required to post a one-page budget summary (designed by KPI) on the home page of their web sites and distribute it at every local school board meeting.

KPI discovered school districts were diverting education dollars to build large cash reserves while claiming to be underfunded.  Legislation was passed to remove restrictions on the use of carryover cash reserves in 2011. Legislators are considering making partial use of excess funds mandatory.

School districts must annually provide a detailed report of the unencumbered cash balance in every fund to local school board members.

People with degrees or professional certification in science, technology, engineering, and vocational fields will no longer be required to have an education degree to teach in high school.

Prior to this 2013 law, most school districts would only permit a union to have access to teachers.  Since passage, the non-union Association of American Educators has seen membership surge and several small school districts have de-certified from their union.

The number of mandatory subjects of bargaining was reduced from 31 to a maximum of 8; each party may select up to 3 subjects in addition to pay and time worked.

KPI wrote the legislation to create a study commission that spent 6 months in 2014 exploring a variety of efficiency opportunities, including the consolidation of non-classroom functions across district lines.  KPI president Dave Trabert was appointed to the Commission and co-authored the Minority Report, which highlighted many important findings, including:

• School districts don’t know how to define or measure performance against the Rose standards, which the Supreme Court now says is the litmus test for funding adequacy; if schools cannot measure Rose, they have no legal basis for claiming to lack funding to achieve the Rose standards.
• School districts acknowledged that they choose to operate inefficiently.
• School districts want collective bargaining reform to dramatically reduce the number of mandatory subjects of bargaining.

State schools must publish a prospectus for degree programs, including the average number of years and total cost required to complete and the earning potential upon completion.

Changes to federal tax law in 2017 allowed for 529 college-savings plans to be used for K-12 expenses. KPI worked directly with the State Treasurer to provide support and guidance to bring this change to Kansas 529 plans as well.

Historic income tax cuts that could have ultimately led to the elimination of the state income tax.  KPI paved the way by showing that Kansas was headed for budgetary disaster without tax reform and then showed legislators that spending control is the key to tax reform. The 2016 election sent new legislators to Topeka who approved the largest tax increase in state history and undid all of the positive economic benefits of allowing citizens to keep more of their hard-earned money, but our original effort still produced $2.8 billion in income tax savings through fiscal year 2016.

Multiple proposals have been put forward in recent years to reward unions, both public and private sector, for their defense of governmental and special interests at the expense of taxpayers. Tenure for public school teachers was made a prerogative of local districts rather than state-mandated several years ago, with KPI’s help, and efforts to repeal this important change were beat. The idea of paying a prevailing wage, thereby helping cost-inflated union projects and costing taxpayers more money, was introduced and defeated this year. An attempt to effectively eliminate Right to Work was also defeated.

With some exceptions (including but not limited to the value of new construction and spending on public safety) cities and counties cannot increase property taxes by more than inflation without voter approval.  Another property tax bill allows tax appeals to be taken to District Court after a full opinion has been rendered by the Board of Tax Appeals. Appeals to the District Court are considered de novo trials with evidentiary hearings during which issues of law and fact will be determined anew.  The bill also includes improvements in the valuation of oil and gas leases and there are multiple improvements to the appraisal and appeals process to become more taxpayer-friendly.

Multiple studies showing the true nature of the unfunded liabilities in the Kansas Public Employees Retirement System (KPERS) led to 2013 reform that puts new and unvested employees into a hybrid cash balance plan instead of the defined benefit plan.  KPI continues to be the driving force for ending the defined benefit plan for all employees and putting everyone into a defined contribution / 401(k) plan.

Passed in 2016, this law requires each agency to prioritize programs and functions according to effectiveness and show the cost of each. The Legislature allowed three years for the plan to be implemented.  The progress so far has been slow and less than effective but KPI is monitoring the process.

KPI testified with groups as diverse as the ACLU and The Federalist Society to see more transparency brought to asset forfeiture in Kansas. Asset forfeiture is where police take property from citizens when a crime is suspected to have been committed, and where citizens have very little recourse to reclaim their property if not charged or found guilty. We passed a law requiring police to publish lists of all property taken, which is the first step in a larger effort to protect property rights

Much of the legislature’s work happens in committee hearings that are now viewable online. Prior to the passage of this law, only those in the capitol itself were able to truly understand the goings-on in committee. This is a huge transparency win.

The fear of losing a lifetime property tax exemption for the renewable energy industry prompted negotiation to eliminate the mandate in exchange for keeping a 10-year tax exemption.

Our efforts on property tax reform also were instrumental in many changes to the appeals process that created a more taxpayer-friendly environment. COTA was changed to a Board of Tax Appeals, taxpayers will receive information needed to file appeals on a timelier basis, valuations on victorious appeals must remain in place for two years and the Board may no longer make arbitrary decisions on who may represent taxpayers on their behalf.

Our work on school funding drove legislation requiring school districts to use a standard accounting and reporting system and annually post spending information on their web sites.