City reminds legislators about ramifications
New governor could change outlook
By Bobbi Mlynar
Sunday, February 22, 2009
City officials and local legislators finally got their schedules synchronized Saturday morning, when they sat down for the annual discussion about government needs.
"We typically in early January develop our legislative position paper for the year," said City Manager Matt Zimmerman.
The annual meeting between the two groups generally takes place in January or early February, before the legislature gets too far along in its work on proposed bills.
Budget was one of the main topics for this year's meeting, which Zimmerman said was surprisingly short -- about an hour and 15 or 30 minutes.
"We identified again that some of our concern is that they end up balancing the state's budget on the back of local municipalities," Zimmerman said. "When that happens, all that does is change the service levels or the taxes. ... That's not necessarily the appropriate way to do it."
The two groups, made up of Zimmerman, city commissioners, and state Sen. Jim Barnett and state Rep. Peggy Mast, discussed the process that had been used for the sales tax exemption that will allow Lyon County to collect more than the 1 percent maximum mandated by state law.
Zimmerman said the groups talked about key issues in the state, including a smoking ban favored by the Kansas Senate. A state smoking ban could affect a smoking ordinance passed last year by the commission.
Although some state laws specifically allow municipalities to enact more-stringent ordinances than state law, the smoking ban does not have that option included.
"... (I)t would supersede local exemptions and certainly it was understood that the bigger challenge was going to be on the House side," he said. "The senators had certainly passed it."
"This particular bill said that this will be the legislation throughout Kansas," Zimmerman said.
The groups also discussed what might happen if Gov. Kathleen Sebelius resigns as governor to accept a post in Pres. Barack Obama's cabinet. Sebelius' absence could prompt a change in the way the 2010 state budget is structured.
The governor's proposed changes for liquor tax distribution in 2010 also drew some attention and some speculation about what the impact might be locally.
Currently, local governments receive 90 percent of the taxes collected on liquor within their boundaries; the state receives 10 percent.
"She's proposing to flip that," Zimmerman said, explaining that under Sebelius's proposal, the state would receive the 90 percent and only 10 percent would come back to local governments. "One of the things we pointed out was that we have a number of programs that live by that (90 percent). We need to find other ways of balancing our budget if that goes through."
The liquor taxes -- about $270,000 a year -- are split into thirds, with one third going to park projects, one-third to the general fund, and one-third to the special alcohol fund. The latter then is doled out to the various entities to operate drug and alcohol programs at Emporia State University, the school district and the Mental Health Center of East Central Kansas.
Zimmerman said that Mast particularly is interested in the post-legislative audit committees ferreting out some of the wastes within programs, and remedying them, if possible. She again mentioned that the committees had made a series of recommendations to operate more efficiently, but nothing changes, he said.
The legislators talked about fundamental ways budgets could be balanced "rather than just nickel-and-diming it."
"They identified what the challenges would be, and no one knows how it will play out, since it's such a staggering number we're going to look at," Zimmerman said.
Steve_Corbin (anonymous) says...
How about using some of that liquor tax money to buy new tornado sirens that work. Take it away From EDA and put it to a good use.
Steve
February 22, 2009 at 8:19 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
generalsn (anonymous) says...
After over a year of experience here in Chicago, trying to ban smoking in small neighborhood "shot and beer" bars is pretty useless. Many small bars in my area ignore the ban to keep their customers, neighbors, and local police (many are patrons when off duty) satisfied. The problem of undesirables being attracted by groups of people outside the bars and causing disturbances on the PUBLIC street, property that the owner has no control over, far outweighs the issue of people peacefully smoking inside a bar, bothering absolutly no one. Bars ignoring the ban also result in fewer kids being exposed to more smoke than ever before when adults gather at their homes, instead of at a local bar.
February 23, 2009 at 3:21 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
create (anonymous) says...
Good point, Steve. Let's see some concrete results from these funds.
These same old, same old drug and alcohol programs at the schools. How's that been working? Hmmmmmmmmm?
Every year, every year, every year, the kids at the 6th grade construct a message on the fence about being drug free for red ribbon week. Any new ideas? Any long-term results? Hmmmmmmmmmm?
February 23, 2009 at 8:57 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )