USD 417 May District Spotlight
How Kansas Funds Its Schools — And Why It Matters for Morris County
One of my goals as superintendent is to make sure our community has a clear picture of what is happening in USD 417. This month, rather than focusing on a single district decision or project, I want to step back and explain something that shapes nearly every decision we make, how Kansas funds its public schools.
School finance is not a simple topic, but it affects every family in Morris County. It shows up in your property tax statement, in the programs we are able to offer students, and in the conversations your board of education has every single month. My hope is that by the end of this article, the system makes a little more sense.
The Formula: How the State Decides What a District Receives
Kansas uses what is called a student-based funding model. The state takes a single dollar figure called Base Aid for Student Excellence, or BASE, and multiplies it by a district's weighted enrollment to determine how much state funding a district receives.
For the 2025-2026 school year, BASE aid is set at $5,615 per student. That number, however, is just the starting point.
Kansas recognizes that not every student costs the same to educate. A student learning English as a second language, a student receiving special education services, or a student identified as at-risk of academic failure all require additional resources. To account for this, the state applies eleven different weightings that increase a district's funding for students with greater needs. For example, at-risk students generate an additional 0.484 weighting — meaning each at-risk student effectively counts as 1.484 students when the state calculates funding. These weightings are the state's way of acknowledging that equitable education does not always mean identical spending.
The Local Effort: What Property Taxes Pay For
State funding does not tell the whole story. Local property taxes make up a significant portion of every Kansas school district's budget, and understanding how that works helps explain why school finance conversations often come back to your tax bill.
Property taxes for schools are measured in mills. One mill equals one dollar in tax for every $1,000 of a property's assessed value. But here is something many people do not realize — in Kansas, property tax is applied to the assessed value of your home, not the full appraised value. For residential properties, the assessed value is 11.5% of the appraised value.
What does that mean in practice? A home appraised at $250,000 has an assessed taxable value of $28,750. That $28,750,   not the $250,000, is what the mill levy is applied to. The formula is straightforward: multiply the assessed value by the total mill levy in your taxing jurisdiction to determine your tax bill.
So if a district's total school mill levy is 60 mills, the math on that $250,000 home would look like this: $28,750 divided by 1,000, multiplied by 60 mills, equals $1,725 in school property taxes for the year. Not $15,000. Not $250,000 worth of taxes, just the school portion applied to 11.5% of the home's value.
This is important context any time a bond election or mill levy increase is discussed. When you hear that a bond would add 5 mills, that means five additional dollars per $1,000 of assessed value, not appraised value. On that same $250,000 home, 5 additional mills would equal approximately $144 more per year, or about $12 per month.
A district's total mill levy is not a single tax, it is made up of several distinct funds, each with its own purpose set by state law. The General Fund carries a state-mandated levy of 20 mills, the same across every Kansas school district, and funds day-to-day operations. The Supplemental General Fund, also known as the Local Option Budget, gives districts flexibility to fund programs and services beyond what the state formula provides. The Capital Outlay fund is dedicated to facilities maintenance and improvements and is capped at 8 mills. The Bond and Interest fund is used exclusively to repay voter-approved bond debt. Money in one fund cannot simply be moved to another; each has a defined and restricted purpose.
The Special Education Gap: A Promise That Isn't Being Fully Kept
One of the least understood pressures on any Kansas school district's budget involves special education funding, and it is something I want our community to understand clearly.
Under Kansas law, the state is required to fund 92 percent of what are called excess costs, the additional expenses a district incurs educating students with disabilities beyond what it costs to educate a general education student. This is not a local policy. It is a promise written into state law.
In practice, the state is falling significantly short of that obligation. In the 2024-2025 school year, the state funded only about 66 percent of special education excess costs statewide. The gap between what the law promises and what the state actually delivers does not disappear; it gets transferred to local districts, who are required to cover the difference out of their General Fund.
For USD 417, that gap is real and it is significant. In fiscal year 2024-2025, the total cost of providing special education services in our district was $1,829,396. The state reimbursed $896,170, leaving a shortfall of $933,226. To cover that gap, USD 417 was required to transfer $1,197,514 from our General Fund into the Special Education fund. That is money that cannot be spent on teacher salaries, instructional materials, or any of the other needs competing for space in a limited budget.
This pattern is not unique to one year. Over the past two years, USD 417 has transferred a total of $2,098,533 from the General Fund to cover the state's special education shortfall, dollars our community sent to support the day-to-day education of all students, redirected to cover an obligation the state committed to but has not fully honored.
This is not a local failure. It is a statewide structural problem that hits smaller districts particularly hard. If we don’t make this transfer then the district would be opening itself up for a lawsuit.   
What Comes Next: A 2027 Deadline
The law that currently governs how Kansas funds its schools, the Kansas School Equity and Enhancement Act, or KSEEA — is set to expire on July 1, 2027. A state Education Funding Task Force is currently working to develop recommendations for a new formula before that deadline.
What emerges from that process will have direct consequences for communities like ours, affecting how much funding USD 417 receives, how that money can be used, and ultimately what we are able to provide for our students and staff.
I will continue to keep our community informed as that process moves forward. School finance is complex, but it is not beyond understanding — and an informed community is always our greatest asset.
As always, my door is open. You can reach me at tyson.eslinger@usd417.org.
 
Tyson Superintendent
USD 417 Morris County 
Superintendent of Schools 
#ForwardTogether417