This year’s session of the Kansas Legislature is two weeks old, and lawmakers have been busy discussing the many urgent issues facing the state. Coming up with a balanced budget is the overriding issue, as the state is facing massive revenue shortfalls for this year and next year. Legislators are also busy trying to resolve the Lyon County sales tax that was voted in last August. Here, local lawmakers discuss what they’ve been busy with so far in the session, and what their major concerns are.
Sen. Jim Barnett
“I’ve been very busy talking with people and looking at various options for the budget. I’ve stayed in touch with leadership and the chairman of the senate ways and means about the budget bill. We hoped the bill would be able to come out of committee this week, but that is looking less likely as we speak. We have been holding a number of hearings on public health and welfare about chronic disease management, and tomorrow we will address the issue of safety net clinics and dealing with the uninsured in the state. Today I addressed the Kansas Health Policy Authority Board to thank them and urge them on with their efforts.
“Tomorrow we will hold a hearing on a bill that’s been introduced related to a soldier in Iraq and has a challenging history of being in a previous marriage when his wife had an extramarital affair and a child was born. The courts have held him responsible for paying child support even though he is not the father. He is now remarried with three children of his own and struggles to pay for their needs because he’s required by the court to pay child support for a child who is not his own. I’ve introduced the bill to have the senate judiciary committee to review that topic to consider whether it’s fair or just.
“On the budget, I’m trying to think of something positive to say, and I can’t.
“Next Monday, Jesse Solis and other members of the community are coming to dedicate a Braille flag. He will formally dedicate the flag in the senate chamber at 2:30 this coming Monday.”
Rep. Don Hill
“It’s typical that they always start slow and it’s no different this time. I have a committee that’s meeting today for the first time. We’re already two weeks into the session. It’s frustrating, especially when there’s so many things that need to get done.
“The top order of business has been trying to shepherd along the Lyon County sales tax, and I have discouraging news to report on that front. You just do what you can do, and then unfortunately you’re at the mercy of the process. We had legislation drafted prior to the time the legislature convened, so at the first opportunity I met with the tax committee when it was introduced, after which time it was available to be scheduled for a hearing. The earliest that hearing could have happened would have been tomorrow, but the tax committee chairman told me yesterday afternoon that he had not scheduled it for a hearing because he was waiting on a similar piece of legislation that affects Rawlins County out in northwest Kansas. So in spite of my at first encouragement and then protest, we may or may not be in a delay until the other legislation has caught up with ours. So instead of tomorrow, which would have been the earliest, we’re going to be back into the next week and Rep. Mast and Sen. Barnett and I have all been working on this together. Today, I am contacting the secretary of revenue’s office to compare notes, to sit down and kind of determine what, in reality, is the last day that we can get this done and still have them work with us. Feb. 1 had been our goal, and that still is our goal, but we’re going to miss it at least by a few days. The question is, what are they willing to do? My sense is that they will be willing to work with us and they have their limits.
“Otherwise, our education committee has met twice. Yesterday we had the pleasure of hearing from the Kansas Teacher of the Year candidate. There is a lot of concern about the budget, particularly K-12 education and to what extent there will be cuts made necessary by the budget shortfall. I am of the opinion that it will not be possible to hold K-12 harmless, that there will in fact have to be cuts that probably will be painful.
“I am having my first opportunity at leadership. I am the vice chair of the committee on aging and long-term care. We had our first meeting yesterday afternoon in that committee. I’m looking forward to that. My other committee is economic development and tourism, and in that regard there’s a lot of concern. The governor has proposed doing away with the Kansas Technology Enterprise Corporation, KTEC, and also there will be budgetary concerns for the Kansas Bioscience Authority, and for Kansas Inc., which is another economic development entity, and we will be working on all these issues in terms of the budget considerations to try to be sure that, in making our short-term budget decisions, we don’t do irreparable or long-term harm to these endeavors.”
Rep. Peggy Mast
“It looks like the House is going to start working on the governor’s budget for 09 this week. We had thought we were going to hold off and let the Senate pass it out to expedite the process. They started working on it last week and they’ve hit a log jam somehow, and so the House is going to have to start working on it to see if we can expedite it. The longer we delay passing to 09 supplemental, the harder hit the agencies have to take, because they need time to prepare and be able to implement the cuts. The SRS and the department of aging have already made some freezes and some cuts that have impacted their agencies. The board of regents stood before us yesterday and said that because they’ve had requests but hadn’t had any specific demands yet, they hadn’t really implemented any cuts, so we know that we need to get it done.
“Right now, we’re looking at how we can pass a responsible 09 supplemental without having proper hearings on the impact on all of the agencies, and that’s going to be a real challenge. Not only that, but realizing that if we touch education at this point, we probably lose votes on the Democrat side, and we’ll probably have a hard time passing a budget that includes any cuts at all to education, which means all the other agencies have to take a much bigger cut.
“On the Lyon County sales tax, I spoke with Rep. Hill last night, and he said that he was having problems getting the hearings scheduled for that, and I agreed with him that I would talk to the chairman of the tax committee today myself and see if we can get that expedited, to see if we can get it through the process as soon as possible, so it looks like this is a year where the key word is “hurry.” We’re trying to hurry to get things done and waiting to get the results of our requests.
“The bill that I had requested for utilities, I had talked to the chairman of the utilities committee yesterday, and he is indeed going to try to schedule a hearing for that, and that’s one that would impact the rates for energy -- propane or natural gas -- for individuals who are located in the Americus area who are impacted by that particular company, so I’ve had a lot of cooperation in that arena, and I’ve got to say the utilities committee has a huge number of bills they are trying to hear this year.
“I haven’t heard any discussion about a state-wide smoking ban in the house. I don’t know whether that will be received very well in the house yet because it hasn’t come up as part of the discussions, so I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.
“Right now, the majority of the people seem to be focusing on how we address the budget. Not only how do we address it, but how do we get a bill that’s going to pass. I think we’ve learned a lesson from the senate that changing the governor’s budget may not work, and in order to get it passed, we may have to accept the governor’s budget, cuts and all, even though with her cuts were based on Nov. 1 estimates, and we’ve had a declining revenue estimate since then, so we’re looking at about $187 million that we’re going to have to find. Suspension of the existing tax cuts are probably a reality at this point.
“I would like to say I’ve gotten a lot of feedback about my newsletter, and it was a lot of encouragement that a lot of people realize the situation we’re facing, and they’re encouraging us, and that’s what we need more than anything else, because it’s not an easy process.”
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