This Week at the Capitol
The fourth week of the 2009 legislative session brought much needed action to the House floor. On Wednesday, the House spent five hours debating House Substitute for Senate Bill 23, also known as the rescission bill, which will revise the FY 2009 budget. The legislation formally passed on Thursday with a 74-48 vote. I included more specific information about the bill below, but essentially the bill cuts $305 million from the current budget and includes at 1% across-the-board cut throughout state government. The bill is deeply flawed and I am concerned will have a devastating impact on local schools, which is why I did not support it.
Now that the House has voted on the bill (which was considered by the Senate last week), the legislation will go to conference committee, where I am hopeful more productive compromise will take shape. The conference committee will work to merge both House and Senate proposals, after which the bill will return to both chambers for an up or down vote next week. Once it is approved, the bill will go to the Governor for her signature or veto.
House debates budget bill
This week the House focused on the fiscal year 2009 budget reconciliation bill. This bill would make cuts to the 2008-09 budget, which the Legislature approved last year. Last week the Senate passed a measure which would have made about $335 Million in cuts to the current budget while making a $33 per pupil cut in K-12 education funding. The House Appropriations Committee responded last Friday by making different cuts, totaling about $321 Million and increasing the cuts to K-12 Education from $33 per pupil to $88 per pupil.
The entire House body took up the reconciliation bill on Wednesday. The first amendment offered was to decrease the cuts to K-12 education to a total of $66/pupil, still twice what the Senate had passed and three times what the governor had initially offered in her budget proposal. House Democrats argued that the cuts to education were entirely too severe with only 5 months left in the local school districts’ budget year and most expenses tied up in contracted services. This made the cuts total about $305 Million. The proposal passed on a 75-47 vote with most Democrats voting against the proposal. The “catch-22” of this proposed amendment was although the cut was reduced, the resulting number ($66/pupil reduction) was still unacceptably high to the Democratic caucus.
The next major amendment was made by Representative Bill Feuerborn, ranking Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee. The change would have rolled back the K-12 cuts to the $33/pupil as passed by the Senate and made other adjustments such as fewer cuts in social services and public safety (corrections) for a final reduction total of about $280 Million. This was supported by the Democratic Caucus. The amendment failed on a 47-75 vote.
The next major amendment was made by Representative Tom Sawyer, member of the House Appropriations Committee. The change would also have rolled back the K-12 cuts to the $33/pupil level and made further adjustments for a final reduction total of $315.2 Million. Even though this was a greater cut than the House Bill as amended, it failed 48-74 on a mainly party line vote.
Representative Melody McCray-Miller offered an amendment to reduce the $3.1 Million cut to the Children’s Initiative Fund. This fund makes grants to local areas for pre-K programs of assessment and intervention for at-risk children. Representatives Ed Trimmer and Ann Mah spoke favorably for this minor savings, but the amendment failed on a 55-68 vote.
Final action on the bill was scheduled for Thursday, after which the bill will likely go to conference committee to iron out differences between the senate and House version.
The priorities of House Democrats continue to be children, public safety, and social services. Assistant Minority Leader Jim Ward spoke to the group about the process, citing the need to “put the money where our priorities are.” The Democratic amendments continued to stress the caucus values and speak, as Representative Marti Crow said, “for those who don’t have a voice up here in Topeka.”
Representative Steve Lukert pointed out the differences in the effects of the cuts to small and large districts saying that “the small, rural districts are hurt much more than the larger ones.” Representative Cindy Neighbor pointed out the 23 districts with no contingency funds at all and many with very little to count on if the cuts are made in 2009 to public education.
House Minority Leader Paul Davis ended the Democratic discussion by indicating that he would not support the bill as written as it truly does not treat K-12 education as our number 1 priority.
On Thursday the budget bill passed by a final action vote of 74 to 48 and included a one percent across-the-board cut to education. We hope now that a more reasonable approach that protects public education will be pursued in conference committee.
Local Government committee considers annexation legislation
This week the Local Government Committee held a hearing for House Bill 2029, which addressed annexation and deannexation procedures for cities. The bill was produced from the Special Committee on Eminent Domain in Condemnation of Water Rights and focuses on land owner rights.
Two major amendments were offered to the existing bill. The first would require a city to provide the board of county commissioners with a copy of the plan for extension of services when an annexation takes place. The second would change the time regulation of when the county should call a hearing to consider whether the city has complied with all services’ promises. The current law says the county should consider this hearing in five years, the bill proposes to change to three years.
Those who opposed the bill were worried about annexation as a whole saying that with annexation there are no homeowner rights or no property rights. Those people also thought annexation could bring more costs to the city, it could raise the mil levy, and there would be too much up keep for the city to take care of. There was also fear that the content of the bill would be changed when it reached the House for consideration. Those in favor of the bill were pleased with the bill because it gave protection to the citizens. It was also stated that the plans that have to be submitted to the board of county commissioners would be a very helpful tool for them. There was another comment that stated all of the changes were “common sense” and “needed to be done.”
House approves Guantanamo joint resolution
This week the House approved a joint resolution to voice opposition to placing war/terrorist detainees from Gitmo at Fort Leavenworth. Specifically, the Resolution outlines reasons why the Leavenworth community is not appropriate for this serious duty.
If this becomes a mission of the Fort, our capable military will do it; but the damage to the international officer program and, as a result, international relations, and the negative impact upon the CGSC mission to educate our military leaders and craft the military strategies for our nation will be a price paid for such a decision. We want the President, Vice President, our Congressional delegation and our Governor to know the particular problems with placing this mission in our midst.
The House approved the resolution unanimously. To view the resolution in its entirety: http://www.kslegislature.org/bills/2010/2009_1606.pdf.
Higher Education Committee considers legislation to attract out-of-state students
The House Higher Education committee was again very busy this week. On Tuesday we heard testimony from a panel of University of Kansas officials, representing the Kansas Board of Regents Universities. They came as proponents of House Bill 2007, which would grant the Board of Regents the ability to offer discounts or waivers to out-of- state legacy high school graduates. Currently, all of our neighboring states- and many in the region- have incorporated “legacy” programs. In Iowa, the state pays the entire difference between out-of-state legacy students and in-state tuition. While House Bill 2007 does not go that far, it does give the Board of Regents authority to offer a discount.
Proponents of the bill believe the legislation is extremely important to future success of the state universities of Kansas. Within the next ten years, there are projections that the number of graduating high school seniors in Kansas will decrease significantly. State universities need programs that not only helps keep the best and brightest in Kansas but also helps incentivize some of the best minds in the country to pursue higher education in our state. The University of Kansas officials stated that this measure will be revenue neutral because they expect many more of the 90,000 alumni currently residing out of state will send their children to Kansas for college. Increased enrollment numbers will offset any cost to the state caused by the initial discount.
Tax Committee considers sales tax bills
The Tax Committee held hearings on HB 2026 and HB 2071 (HB 2071 was later amended to be combined into HB 2026). HB 2026 would permit Lyon County to collect the 1% sales tax that the voters approved on August 5, 2008. The sales tax question was submitted by the board of county commissioners for Lyons County, and the revenue received from the tax would be expended for the purposes of ad valorem tax reduction and capital outlay. The bill provides for a five-year sunset after the commencement of the act. The County could not collect the tax approved by 62% of the voters, because the County already has a ½% sales tax to pay for a new courthouse.
Similarly, HB 2071 would permit Rawlins County to increase its sales tax by .75%, and the revenue would be used to finance the costs of a swimming pool. This sales tax increase was also approved by voters, but could not be implemented because the increase also put Rawlins County in excess of its 1% local sales tax permitted by K.S.A. 12-187.
There was much debate over the 60-day notice requirement in both bills; the bills were later amended to leave that requirement out of the bills. Proponents of HB 2026 included the County Counsel in Lyon County, Emporia City Manager, Rep. Hill, and Rep. Mast. They stated the purpose of the tax increase was to give property tax relief and to finance projects for Lyons County. The Rawlins County Attorney spoke as a proponent of HB 2071. He stated the citizens of the county wanted to construct a new swimming pool; the old one was built in the 1950s and had structural problems. There were no opponents to the bills.