Kansas' Republican attorney general asked the state's highest court to reward the GOP-controlled Legislature for following through on a decade's worth of court-mandated education funding increases by making it harder for local school districts to force higher spending in the future. Attorney General Kris Kobach's office wants the Kansas Supreme Court to close a lawsuit that four school districts filed against the state in 2010.
Powell noted that the court approved a plan four years ago to phase in a series of funding increases through the previous school year and wrote that “all funding has been phased in successfully.” Kansas has been in and out of school funding lawsuits for several decades, with lawmakers promising increases in spending and then backing off when the economy soured and state revenues became tight.