Submitted
Ed Hammond’s advocacy for full state funding for public education has gained him the electoral recommendation of the Kansas National Education Association.
Hammond was notified by email that he is the KNEA’s recommended candidate for the 111th District Kansas House seat.
He is advocating for full funding of public education and special education in Kansas to make up the current $1.6 million annual shortfall for the Hays and Victoria school districts combined.
“We have to send a true advocate to Topeka to represent the 111th District and support full funding for K-12 and special education,” he said..
He points out that the Legislature had the money to fully fund education at the end of this year’s legislative session, with $2 billion in reserves and $960 million in the state’s rainy-day fund.
But instead of funding K-12 schools and public education, the Legislature withheld full funding for special education, forcing districts to make up the difference from their operating funds. For Hays USD 489, this amounts to $1.5 million a year, equivalent to 5 mills in its property tax levy.
For Victoria USD 432, the loss is about $105,000 a year, about 3.5 mills in its tax levy.
House and Senate members, including the incumbent 111th House District representative, Barb Wasinger, knew when they cut special education that federal and state mandates would force school districts to take money from operations, which includes teacher salaries, to make up the 20-percent cut in special ed.
Hammond points out that, over the four years that Wasinger has been in the House, Hays and Victoria schools have lost more than $6 million in revenue.
He said the lost annual money in the two districts represents 22 teaching positions in Hays and 1.5 in Victoria.
“They point to the operational side and claim they are fully funding education, meeting the requirements of the Kansas Constitution, and obeying the orders of the Kansas Supreme Court. Then they actually obey the demands of their special interests, who don’t want full funding for public education, and cut the special education side.”
Special education involves one in six students, between 720 and 800 students combined in Hays and Victoria, and more than a hundred gifted students as well as disadvantaged and high-risk students. It also includes special education students at Hays’ two private schools, Thomas More Prep-Marian High School and Holy Family Elementary School.
The need for a real advocate will only increase as the state comes to the end of the specific dollar increases outlined by the Kansas Supreme Court in its decisions in the Montoy (2006) and Gannon (2018) cases. After the 2022-2023 academic year, funding for education is supposed to increase by a percentage equal to the three-year rolling average of the Consumer Price Index, currently at 9.1 percent.
“Barb has demonstrated that she can’t be trusted to follow the law even when specific dollar amounts are mandated,” Hammond says. “Percentages make it possible for her to cause even more damage. In the coming session of the Kansas Legislature, the 111th District is going to need, more than ever, a true advocate, and that is why teachers, administrators, and now the KNEA support my candidacy.”