(Second of three articles)
In September 1992, about 200 people from southwest Kansas attended a convention at Ulysses to discuss secession from the state of Kansas. Earlier that year, citizens in nine counties – Grant, Haskell, Hodgeman, Kearny, Kiowa, Meade, Morton, Stanton and Stevens – voted in spring elections to begin the process of secession.
The movement was fueled by anger over the state’s new school finance act, seen as yet another blow in a series that had weakened their community – school consolidation in the mid-1960s, court unification (mid-’70s), severance taxes on oil and gas (mid-’80s) and now, the loss of local control and local money. Atop this, a ceaseless drain of population precipitated cycles of legislative reapportionment and loss of voice at the state Capitol.
The trouble with school finance had started in 1986. Federal tax reform (and tax cuts) and reform of Kansas property classification and reappraisal would skew the state formula for aid to local schools. The amount of aid depended on district wealth: mostly property value, plus taxable income.
By 1989 the federal and state laws had turned this wealth formula on its head. Federal tax cuts exposed more Kansas income to state taxation; income, not property values, would drive the formula. Scores of communities were suddenly penalized as high-income school districts. They faced huge losses in state aid and soaring property tax bills.
In 1992 the Legislature and Gov. Joan Finney agreed to a new formula for financing local schools. Its rudiments stand today.
The new law established a statewide, uniform property tax for schools and a central pool for distribution of revenues; it set spending limits with variation for exceptional costs (local option budgets). Funding was tied to the number of students to be educated, not district wealth. Sales and income tax revenues were added to the state pool. New standards would measure student achievement.
In effect, the law abolished most taxing authority for local school boards; local wealth became a state resource to be shared among rich and poor communities. The law was to achieve equity; the wealth of fortunate communities should be shared for the greater good of education in all school districts. In the southwest, the benefits of oil and gas, and agriculture, would be shared with poorer communities, urban as well as rural. To many, this was seen as looting.
“The state is trying to end a way of life out here,” said Keith Allen, a farmer from Haskell County who was at the convention. “The urban attitude toward us is, we win and you lose and we don’t care.”
The new school act had come nine years after the state’s first severance taxes on oil and gas, also viewed as a raid on the region. More than half the $89 million in 1991 severance taxes had come from secessionist counties.
But beneath the heated publicity lay a counterbalance of skepticism. In 1992, none of the region’s 15 candidates for the Legislature – incumbent or challenger – openly supported secession and it was rarely a subject in area political forums.
At that time, the only legislator in the region to discuss the issue was State Rep. Don Smith, a Democrat from Dodge City. “Some people have no social conscience beyond their own property line,” he said. “The community is larger than that.”
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The Kansas Supreme Court has since issued more than a half-dozen rulings to reinforce the 1992 act. Pooling local wealth has prompted lower property taxes statewide. Roughly 75 percent of all district operating budgets is financed with state aid. New schools have been built with additional aid. Base state aid per pupil is $4,704 this year and estimated at $4,846 for the 2023 school year. In 1992, it was $3,600.
Seclusion remains. The southwest, even with slight gains in Dodge and Garden City, has lost population. The secessionist counties’ combined census is down more 12.5 percent in 10 years; others show significant losses, some of them from 10 to 16 percent. The southwest now elects only two of the state’s 40 senators, and five of the 125-member House.
The distance today is measured in neglect and faded promises – for state aid to cities and counties, for universal broadband internet, for expanded health care, more doctors, dentists, nurses. It is measured in timeworn need – for better local roads, for decent air, rail and bus service, for affordable housing and child care. Area students talk of a state university satellite campus at Dodge City.
In September, a Rural Living survey told the rural litany of why the young leave and can’t – or won’t – return. For many who stay, distance becomes detachment and yearning turns to grievance. From there, it’s not far to the politics of resentment.
(Next: The Concannon legacy)
