The Kansas House will have a busy week as it takes up the supplemental budget passed by the Senate on Thursday. Before it does that, on Tuesday it will take up its first piece of legislation for the session as it discusses HB 2026, the Lyon County sales tax.
“We are finally moving that along the path, and I think it will go quickly this week,” said Rep. Don Hill.
After discussion today, the bill will go for final action in the House before moving to the Senate.
“I’m encouraged by that,” Hill said. “It will be one of my projects for the week, to monitor that each step of the way.”
The Senate on Thursday passed a supplemental budget, SB 23, that makes $334 million in adjustments for the 2009 budget to make up for a $186 million shortfall that is expected to grow. The bill will cut funding to higher education and includes a 1.5 percent cut to state agencies. Much of the $334 million comes from accounting maneuvers to avoid steep cuts to public education and social services.
Sen. Jim Barnett voted against the bill because he doesn’t think it does enough to address the state’s continuing budget woes.
“The bill uses too much one-time money,” Barnett said, “accounting maneuvers that do not solve the structural problems with that budget. By structural problems I mean we’re spending more money than we have.”
Barnett says the Senate bill will delay bond payments and put more pressure on communities to raise property taxes, and he likens it to passing credit card debt to our children and grandchildren.
On Friday the House Appropriations Committee worked on the Senate’s bill, and Barnett, Hill and Rep. Peggy Mast are all pleased with the work that committee did.
“I think the bill has gotten better as it has gone through the process,” Rep. Mast said. “... It takes more out of the current than the governor did, but then the governor acknowledged that hers didn’t have deep enough cuts in the first place.” Mast said the House bill cuts less out of state agencies than the Senate’s original bill. The House’s version cuts one percent across the board for education, or $66 per student. Other areas of state government will see a 3 percent cut.
“The House spread the cuts more broadly over the overall agencies,” Sen. Barnett said, “and I would say they are much closer to a bill that I can support. It does protect social services and the most needy in our state more than the bill that was passed out of the Senate.”
According to Hill, the appropriations committee’s work represents a reasonable attempt at getting a workable budget.
“We’ve been looking at this problem long enough,” Hill said. “We need to be acting on it and removing the uncertainty that many of our constituents are dealing with, including social services and education.”
The bill will go to the House floor on Thursday, after which the House and Senate will negotiate details. Several more votes will be required before a compromise can be sent for the governor to sign or veto.
“We need to get it dealt with and get it out as quickly as possible so we can focus on trying to get our economy on track as soon as possible,” Rep. Mast said.
On Tuesday, a Senate committee will look at a bill to institute a statewide smoking ban. The committee last week heard testimony from proponents and opponents of a ban and will work a bill for the Senate to debate.
“I think it’s important to know that the state is grappling with the same issue that Emporia is with the smoking ban issue,” Barnett said, adding that the bill had good support within the committee.
He predicts that the bill will face a tight vote in the Senate, and if it is passed, the House will vastly alter the bill.
“That’s just the process,” he said.
“In the end, I think there’s fairly broad support among the population of Kansas to have some type of statewide policy,” Barnett said, “and I’m hopeful for a floor that provides some recognition for local units of government wanting to have a say in how they establish the policy.”
Barnett also is working on legislation dealing with Medicaid coverage for heart transplants. Kansas is one of the few states that does not cover heart transplants for Medicaid patients. To get coverage, a patient has to establish residency in another state.
“This was cut in past years, and I want to reevaluate that policy,” Barnett said.
Barnett also introduced a bill to the Senate Education Committee last week dealing with aid to Chase County.
“The county is ranked as a high-wealth district when in reality they are not,” Barnett said. “The result is that they receive no state supplemental aid, and I think that’s inequitable and unfair.”
CarolT (anonymous) says...
The real issue is ANTI-SMOKER SCIENTIFIC FRAUD. More than 50 studies show that human papillomaviruses cause over ten times more lung cancers than they pretend are caused by secondhand smoke. Passive smokers are more likely to have been exposed to this virus, so the anti-smokers' studies, which are all based on nothing but lifestyle questionnaires, have been cynically DESIGNED to falsely blame passive smoking for all those extra lung cancers that are really caused by HPV.
http://www.smokershistory.com/hpvlung...
The anti-smokers have committed the same type of fraud with every disease they blame on smoking and passive smoking, as well as ignoring other types of evidence that proves they are lying, such as the fact that the death rates from asthma have more than doubled since their movement began.
http://www.smokershistory.com/newview...
And it's a lie that passive smoking causes heart disease. AMI deaths in Pueblo actually ROSE the year after the smoking ban.
http://www.smokershistory.com/etshear...
The government has no right to restrict peoples' liberty without a compelling justification. The anti-smokers have no such justification, so THEY COMMITTED SCIENTIFIC FRAUD TO DECEIVE THE PUBLIC.
February 3, 2009 at 3:38 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
Steve_Corbin (anonymous) says...
A copy of a short note sent to ALL OF THE Kansas Senators this morning:
Dear Senator,
As bad as the economy is right now I ask that you vote against a state wide smoking ban. Our local senator has been pushing his agenda since first elected and his view is not shared by the majority of his constituents. My business, ( a small bar), WILL suffer if this ban is passed. The people of Emporia petitioned to bring this to a vote locally in April of this year. Please don't take our rights to decide this issue on the local level.
Regards
Steve Corbin
Note: they are discussing this today in the senate. E-Mails are read in Topeka.
February 3, 2009 at 6:44 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )