The State Finance Council looked over 40 Kansas school district requests to provide additional funding, totaling over $6 million, to supplement the funds cut this year, according to a press release from Gov. Sam Brownback’s office. Manhattan Ogden USD 383 was one of the districts.
“Although state aid funding for each of these schools increased, we continue to see remnants of the old funding formula creating financial challenges for some districts,” Brownback said in the press release. “We saw today that this process provides districts with reduced valuation, an option for relief that was not available to them under the old formula.”
Twenty-two of the 40 districts that requested funding did so because of reduction in assessed valuation. The reduction in valuation resulted from generally lower oil and gas prices. Sixteen of the other districts requested funds for increased enrollment numbers. The two remaining districts requested either refugee resettlement funding or general aid.
The council will meet in October to determine action for the refugee resettlement funds from the Wichita schools, and will further discuss other requests at that time.
