By TIM CARPENTER
Kansas Reflector
TOPEKA — The hypothetical cost of implementing a Kansas House bill enabling local school districts to pay elected board members $20 per hour for a commitment of less than two hours a week would cost taxpayers $2.8 million annually.
Adopting the change would break a 50-year precedent in Kansas law that made local school board members volunteers without a salary, but the idea seemed to make sense to Rep. Kristey Williams, chair of the House K-12 Budget Committee. She said during a Tuesday hearing the legislation could serve as a token of appreciation for board members and affirm the value placed on work to improve education of children in public schools.
“We don’t have this restriction on municipalities or counties,” Williams said. “Do you think paying someone could at least give them the sense that they have a greater obligation to be informed?”
She addressed the question to Jim Karleskint, a former state legislator and Holton school superintendent who testified about House Bill 2261 on behalf of the United School Administrators of Kansas. He said impact of the reform on school board members would depend on the salary, but argued most board members ran for that public office to make a solid contribution to the education of students rather than to make money.
He said the school administrator organization was officially neutral on the bill, but he did raise with the committee a series of concerns.
“In many school districts,” he said, “the superintendent is selected as the chief negotiator for the board. In years of limited fiscal resources, the board and the teacher’s association would be even more at odds when board members are receiving pay for serving on the board. We would envision board members would receive pay for days they are on board business. It is our concern this could be taken advantage of and resented by the community.”
Karleskint said another consideration was the difference in the workload among the board members working with the state’s 286 districts. Some of the seven-member school boards in Kansas had multiple commitments during a month, while others convened only once a month.
“I can see where a school board member might want to be paid, because of the involvement,” he said.
Currently, Kansas law prohibited individuals serving on local school boards from receiving pay for that work. The House bill would leave the amount of compensation provided school board members to the local district. Funding that compensation would be responsibility of local school districts.
The Kansas State Department of Education estimated it would cost a total of $2.8 million each year if the state’s 2,000 school board members were paid $20 per hour and worked 71 hours each year.
The bill was introduced two weeks ago by Rep. Rebecca Schmoe, an Ottawa Republican and a member of the House K-12 Budget Committee. The panel didn’t take action on the bill.