Kansas Supreme Court reviews lawmakers' school aid changes

Practice Legal News

Attorneys for Kansas hope to persuade the state Supreme Court that recent changes in the state's education funding system are fair enough to poor districts that the justices can abandon a threat to shut down public schools.

The high court was set to hear arguments Tuesday on whether the technical changes legislators made earlier this year comply with a February order from the justices to improve funding for poor school districts. The changes leave most districts' aid unchanged and don't boost overall education spending.

Lawyers for four school districts suing the state contend legislators' work shouldn't satisfy the Supreme Court because aid to all poor districts didn't increase. But the state's attorneys have submitted more than 950 pages of documents in an attempt to show that lawmakers' solution was in keeping with past court decisions.

"I'm hopeful the Supreme Court's going to take what the Legislature has done and say it's an appropriate answer," Republican Gov. Sam Brownback told reporters ahead of the arguments.

The Dodge City, Hutchinson, Wichita and Kansas City, Kansas, districts sued the state in 2010, arguing that Kansas spends too little on its schools and unfairly distributes the aid it does provide, more than $4 billion a year.

The court concluded in February that lawmakers hadn't done enough to ensure that poor districts keep up with wealthy ones. The justices ordered lawmakers to fix the problems by June 30 or face having schools shut down.

Related listings

  • Supreme Court to swear in large group of deaf lawyers

    Supreme Court to swear in large group of deaf lawyers

    Practice Legal News 04/17/2016

    Mobile phones ordinarily are strictly forbidden in the marble courtroom of the nation's highest court, but the justices are making an exception next week when roughly a dozen deaf and hard-of-hearing lawyers will be admitted to the Supreme Court bar....

  • Cosby asks court to reseal testimony about affairs, drugs

    Cosby asks court to reseal testimony about affairs, drugs

    Practice Legal News 04/17/2016

    Bill Cosby's lawyers urged an appeals court Wednesday to reseal the comedian's lurid, decade-old testimony about his womanizing, but the panel of judges seemed to think the request was pointless, since the deposition has already made headlines around...

  • Suspect in some Phoenix freeway shootings pleads not guilty

    Suspect in some Phoenix freeway shootings pleads not guilty

    Practice Legal News 10/12/2015

    A man accused in some of the freeway shootings that put Phoenix drivers on edge for weeks pleaded not guilty Thursday as his defense lawyers questioned the strength of the evidence against him.Attorneys for Leslie Allen Merritt Jr., 21, who was arrai...

Grounds for Divorce in Ohio - Sylkatis Law, LLC

A divorce in Ohio is filed when there is typically “fault” by one of the parties and party not at “fault” seeks to end the marriage. A court in Ohio may grant a divorce for the following reasons:
• Willful absence of the adverse party for one year
• Adultery
• Extreme cruelty
• Fraudulent contract
• Any gross neglect of duty
• Habitual drunkenness
• Imprisonment in a correctional institution at the time of filing the complaint
• Procurement of a divorce outside this state by the other party

Additionally, there are two “no-fault” basis for which a court may grant a divorce:
• When the parties have, without interruption for one year, lived separate and apart without cohabitation
• Incompatibility, unless denied by either party

However, whether or not the the court grants the divorce for “fault” or not, in Ohio the party not at “fault” will not get a bigger slice of the marital property.