Kansas committee debates CTE proviso that would require reporting and allow funding clawbacks if students fail courses

The Committee on K‑12 Education Budget spent most of a session discussing a proposed proviso that would require a new, detailed K‑12 career and technical education (CTE) report and a funding change that could withhold or recoup 0.5 weighted CTE funding for students who do not pass course work.

Nick, a committee staff member, told lawmakers the reporting portion would ask KSTE to list K‑12 CTE pathway courses offered by districts and provide enrollment counts, course passage and failure rates, industry‑recognized credentials earned, counts of eligible students who did not test or earn credentials and per‑pathway per‑unit costs. "This report would be required of KSTE to list the courses and the career pathway clusters that are available," Nick said.

The proviso’s second component would affect funding. Under the plan, a student’s 0.5 CTE weighting applied to FTE enrollment would be withheld or recouped if the student fails the course, with the funding determination anchored to the September 20 count day. Nick warned the committee about timing complexities tied to the single count‑day method: "0.5 funding is determined on 1 count day, September 20, count day," he said.

Dr. Harwood, the auditor who reviewed the operational impact, told the committee the change would be costly and difficult to implement. He said a fiscal note for the proposal would be roughly $464,000 the first year and about $352,000 each subsequent year because auditors would need to speed up and repeat audits to collect grade outcomes and then process appeals and potential recoupments. "We audit every school district between about mid October and mid April. This would require us to finish the audits earlier so that we could go back and re‑audit grades for all the CTE courses and then pull money back," he said.

Lawmakers pressed on logistical issues. Representative McDonald described large districts with CTE centers and students who split time between campuses; members asked how enrollment minutes are tracked when students take courses on college campuses or at regional centers. Dr. Harwood explained that Excel/CTE courses taught and funded by post‑secondary institutions are reported by those institutions, while districts report minutes for courses that carry the 0.5 CTE weighting. "If they are getting the 0.5 CTE weighting, it's the responsibility of the school district to report that they are a student of the district even if they're taking it at a different location," he said.

Representative Steele, who sponsored the motion discussed, framed the proviso as a response to CTE program costs when students repeatedly fail courses. She asked whether the clawback could be removed and whether the committee might instead limit the state’s 0.5 payment to a single instance of funding per pathway course to prevent multiple payments for repeat attempts. Dr. Harwood suggested a narrower approach—pay once for the course so repeat enrollments would not yield additional 0.5 payments—while cautioning that the change represents a big philosophical shift in the funding formula.

Committee members repeatedly emphasized they were not voting today and described the discussion as informational. Several members and staff said the reporting elements could be pursued outside a proviso, and the proviso’s sponsor said consultation with peers had clarified questions. The committee agreed to continue studying how to collect grade and credential data and to consider the operational burden on auditors and districts as they weigh any funding changes.

The chair closed the discussion without committee action and moved the meeting to the next presentation.