Three Veteran Kansas Jurists Picked to Hear School Funding Case (KS)
November 8, 2010
Kansas Court of Appeals Chief Judge Gary Rulon Thursday named three judges, from widely separate parts of the state, to hear a lawsuit that claims state budget cuts for school funding violate state school childrens’ constitutional rights.
The three include Shawnee County District Judge Franklin R. Theis, of Topeka, who also was appointed the panel’s presiding judge; Labette County Judge Robert J. Fleming, of Parsons in far southeast Kansas, and retired Sherman County District Judge Jack L. Burr, of Goodland, in the northwest.
The three are members of a special panel that legislation by the 2005 Kansas Legislature requires to be formed to preside over challenges to Kansas school finance legislation.
On Tuesday attorneys for a group of more than five dozen school districts filed suit in Shawnee County District Court in Topeka, alleging that $303 million in school funding cuts made during the last few years of the state’s fiscal crisis drop state support for education below a state constitutional requirement to provide suitable funding for elementary and high school students’ educations throughout the state.
The three judge panel will hear those contentions, made on behalf of 32 students in the Wichita, Kansas City, Kan., Dodge City and Hutchinson school districts, plus a request in the suit to elevate the claims to a class action on behalf of students in all 289 school districts in the state.
No date for a hearing has been set.
All three judges appointe d to the panel are veteran Kansas jurists
Theis has been a Kansas district judge in Topeka since 1977, handling primarily civil cases. He previously has practiced as a private attorney and also served as an assistant U.S. attorney, Pardon Attorney for former Kansas Gov. Robert Docking and been chief attorney and an assistant Kansas attorney general for the Kansas Department of Administration. In his most recent rating for judicial retention, in 2008, attorneys and non-attorneys in a statewide survey gave him a 3.63 point favorable rating on a 4.0 point scale, just slightly higher than a statewide average 3.5 rating for all Kansas judges at the time.
Fleming was appointed to the bench in 1996 and handles a mixed docket of civil, criminal and probate cases. He previously served as a trial lawyer for 28 years. Attorneys and non attorneys surveyed for his rating for retention this year gave him an overall 3.19 points on a 4.0 scale, which is below the statewide average 3.27 for judges statewide.
Burr sat more than 30 years on the bench before retiring in 2009, including time as chief judge in northwestern Kansas 15th Judicial District. His latest peer ratings weren’t immediately available Thursday.