Well, the big news last week had to be passage in the House of a controversial school finance plan. The plan was substituted for the School Finance Committee’s bill on the floor last week, having never been the subject of an open meeting in the School Finance Committee or any other committee. It’s a plan for which even the sponsors admit they have no funding source. It is millions of dollars more expensive in the current year than the Select Committee on School Finance’s plan and nearly $200M more expensive over 3 years. The Committee’s plan could be funded in the current year. The new plan has no funding source identified.

In checking with Legislative Research staff, the new plan would require that we more than double the statewide property tax mill levy (over $200 more in taxes for a $100K home), or increase the state’s income tax surcharge by nearly 22% (over $640 more for a family of four making $75K) or increase the statewide sales tax by 2 percentage points to 7.3% (over $800 more for a family of four) or some combination thereof. A Hutch News editorial Sunday noted that of the 20 House members from The Hutchinson News circulation a majority voted against the bill. That should come as no surprise given the fact the paper’s web site recently reported that, based on its own survey of readers on the question of whether they would support an increase in taxes for schools, over 70% said “No!”

The Select Committee on School Finance’s plan, worth over $400M in new funding over 3 years, was far more fiscally responsible and didn’t call for tax increases. It was supported by 61 House members, only 2 short of the necessary majority. Ironically, the new plan, which calls for millions of dollars in increased taxes and spending, doesn’t really help Reno County schools that much. In fact, Buhler’s USD 313 actually gets LESS under the new plan than it would have under the Committee’s more realistic proposal!

In addition, Kansas taxpayers and Kansas business have sought tax relief this year that they won’t get under the new school finance plan. Action taken earlier in the session by the House to phase out corporate franchise taxes, business and machinery property taxes, the estate tax and sales taxes on product rebates, will probably be lost altogether. Kansans deserve a balanced approach in the allocation of tax-supported funding. Today, due to court intervention, spending is tilted almost totally in favor of K-12 public education, while higher education, programs for the frail, elderly, disabled and almost every other beneficiary of state tax revenues go wanting.

There is strong interest in getting the school finance lawsuit behind us, but not at any cost. Last week a majority of House members agreed that the Kansas Supreme Court overstepped its constitutional boundaries in ordering the Legislature to spend millions of dollars more on schools. Last week the House voted unanimously to reject implementation of the Legislative Post Audit Cost Study. We were elected to represent our constituents, not serve as an advisory committee to the Supreme Court on school finance. Our fiscal responsibilities are to Kansas taxpayers and ALL beneficiaries of tax-supported programs funded by the state.

The governor is thrilled that the House’s action in passing a school finance plan that can’t be funded out of existing resources means her failed gambling proposal is now back on the table. Her plan for the state is to use school finance as leverage to bring about expanded gambling in the state. She has made her intentions very clear. That’s just sad. What kind of lesson does that teach our kids?

Finally, The News noted that the “bi-partisan” plan did not have the support of the Speaker of the House or 24 of 28 chairmen and vice-chairmen of House Committees. In other words, those with the most experience and leadership in dealing with the fiscal issues of the state from year to year saw this as bad public policy and fiscally irresponsible. These are not lawmakers opposed to educational excellence in the state. Recall that the governor’s own commissioned study by Standard & Poor’s found that school districts which are highly-resource-efficient are able to make adequate educational progress and achieve mandated outcomes with existing resources. The Legislature is challenged to do the same each year in order to be good stewards of the taxpayers’ money. The Court has the luxury of deciding cases in a fiscal vacuum. It is ultimately the responsibility of the peoples’ elected representatives to determine public policy and manage the purse-strings.

Things are heating up in the House Select Committee on School Finance. After several days of hearings on the House school finance plan, the Committee is closer to taking final action to move the plan out. First, however, the Committee will hold hearings and work a proposed constitutional amendment that would re-enforce the power of the legislature to control the state’s purse-strings. The Kansas Constitution currently provides that no money shall be drawn from the state treasury except through an appropriation made by law. At least one prior Kansas Supreme Court decision ruled that the constitutional provision represented an insurmountable barrier to the courts forcing an appropriation – that is, until the current Supreme Court ordered the legislature last year to appropriate a specific additional sum of money for schools under threat of school closures. While most agree the Kansas Constitution does not allow for such a court order, the proposed amendment would re-enforce the power of the legislature to control the expenditure of taxpayer dollars.

The Senate has now rolled out an initial plan, similar in scope to the House plan. The Senate plan would apparently increase funding by $480M over 3-years and would, in addition, require another $180M in local effort, that is, local property taxes. These are not new taxes but rather a shift of local option budget dollars to state funding dollars. Even though both the House & Senate plans include components for increases over 3 years, recently released state budget profiles show that the funding is not there in the second and third years, so look for both plans to end up being a year-to-year plan. There is a good deal of support for the notion that with last year’s investment of $289.5M in new funds, we should measure the results of that investment plus this year’s investment before deciding what is needed in years 2 and 3.

Support for that position was provided late last week with the release of yet another study of school finance, this one the Standard & Poor’s Kansas Education Resource Management Study, commissioned by the governor to help the state improve the “return” on its educational investment. As expected, the study confirmed that there is no demonstrable correlation between amounts of monies spent on school funding and performance outcomes. The Supreme Court has bought into Plaintiff’s argument that more money is needed to reach mandated outcomes but the S&P study found that highly resource-efficient districts were actually reaching mandated outcomes and spending less per student than the state average. S&P noted that Kansas already devotes more of its budget to education than to any other funding category and that prior to the 2005 court order Kansas was already spending an average of nearly $7500 per student. They found that highly resource efficient districts were getting the job done for just under $7000 per student. S&P noted that Kansas could not afford to simply spend its way to 100% student proficiency in the required subjects and that districts needed to find ways, as the highly resource-efficient districts had, to increase the rate of return on their educational investments.

The study should put the damper on the rhetoric the School Finance Committee has been hearing from the education establishment that it is all about needing more money. Needless to say, we will add additional funding for schools again this year, but look for there to be accountability provisions that require districts that are not performing up to par to reallocate existing resources to address those deficiencies.

The legislature reconvened Wednesday after taking two days off to allow legislative staff sufficient time to catch up with the raft of bills passed by the House & Senate prior to the Feb. 25th deadline for working non-exempt bills in the House of origin. The bulk of the heavy work will be completed this month.

The House Federal & State Affairs Committee will begin hearings next week on a constitutional amendment to limit the use of eminent domain in Kansas. Bills to amend eminent domain procedures statutorily are also pending. The issue has arisen in the wake of a recent United States Supreme Court decision upholding the right of local governments to use eminent domain to take private property for economic development purposes. Most support the need for eminent domain powers but most support limiting the extent of that power. High profile instances of the taking of private property for economic development purposes that put the property taken into the hands of private developers has spurred interest in changing the law in Kansas.

Also pending in the House Federal & State Affairs Committee is the concealed carry legislation. The Committee heard testimony on the bill last Thursday and is expected to take action as early as this week. The bill would allow qualifying Kansans to purchase concealed carry permits, good for 4 years and issued after a strict background check and training course in firearms safety. A large number of venues would be off limits to firearms under the bill. Similar laws are in place in 46 of the 50 states. Still, the issue is controversial and it’s uncertain whether the Governor would sign the legislation into law.

A workers compensation bill being pushed by business interests in the state will be heard in the House Commerce Committee. Already approved by the Senate, the bill shortens from 15 years to 5 years the work performed by an injured worker prior to the injury that would be considered when determining the percentage of work disability. It’s an effort to limit the amount of pre-existing conditions an employer is responsible for following a work-related injury and reduce the cost of insurance to those employers.

Some of you may be surprised to know that currently the law allows girls 12 years of age to marry. The minimum age for boys is 14. Granted, children that age would need judicial or parental consent but it can still happen, as was the case recently with a 21 year old man and 13 year-old girlfriend from Nebraska who crossed into Kansas to marry. A bill pending in the Legislature would bring Kansas in line with 40 other states by raising the minimum age of marriage to 16.

It appears the House is poised to do an “about face” on the issue of in-state tuition for children of foreign workers. The legislature passed a measure last year to allow in-state tuition for children of undocumented foreign workers in Kansas who had received their GED’s in Kansas or who had attended Kansas schools for at least 3 years and whose families had applied for citizenship. Many have taken advantage of the program, mainly at the community college level but the program has remained controversial, with a significant percentage of Kansans objecting to favoring such students over citizens from other states who choose to attend Kansas schools. The House Federal & State Affairs Committee heard a bill that would repeal the one-year-old law and it initially failed to advance in Committee. However, the matter was reconsidered and has now passed out of committee and will be considered by the House in the next few days. Should it pass, its fate in the Senate is unknown.

On the subject of school finance, the Senate has now rolled out an initial plan, similar in scope to the House plan. The Senate plan would apparently increase funding by $480M over 3-years and would, in addition, require another $180M in local effort, that is, local property taxes. These are not new taxes but rather a shift of local option budget dollars to state funding dollars. Even though both the House & Senate plans include components for increases over 3 years, state budget profiles released at week’s end show that the funding is not there in the second and third years, so look for both plans to end up being a year-to-year plan. There is a good deal of support for the notion that with last year’s investment of $289.5M in new funds, we should measure the results of that investment plus this year’s investment before deciding what is needed in years 2 and 3.

The House & Senate reached the first major deadline of the year Friday, the deadline for working bills in the house of origin. We’re off today and tomorrow to allow staff time to catch up with the bills worked last week and Wednesday we’ll start hearings in our House committees on Senate bills that have come over. Two bills of local interest will be heard in my Judiciary Committee this week. One would provide additional operating and capital improvement funds for the Kansas Law Enforcement Training Center near Yoder and the other would allow for the display and sale of Kansas wines during the State Fair.

Speaking of wine, the Senate has passed legislation that would allow patrons to leave restaurants with unfinished wine bottles provided they are properly sealed, an effort to reduce the temptation to finish off the rest of a bottle before driving home. And for those caught drinking and driving, the House has passed legislation beefing up the enforcement of ignition interlock installations on the cars of those convicted of drunk driving. The House and Senate have now both passed tougher sex offender crime legislation and both houses are poised to strengthen the criminal penalties for those who torture and kill domestic animals. With legislation passed by the House all those arrested for felony crimes will have DNA samples collected for the state and national crime databases. Our House Judiciary Committee will hold hearings this week on legislation dealing with terrorists and gang members. The Senate passed an anti-funeral picketing bill aimed at the infamous Fred Phelps and family and has also passed over to the House important pro-business reform legislation in the area of workers compensation and estate taxation.

The biggest news of last week was undoubtedly the announcement in the House of a proposed school finance plan that was introduced in the House Select Committee on School Finance on Thursday. The product of discussions between Republican and Democrat leaders in the House and Governor Sebelius, the plan calls for a multiyear increase in school funding in areas identified by the Court and the Legislative Division of Post Audit in its recently released cost study.

The 3-year plan calls for a total of about $500M in additional funds, with $175M coming on line this year. In addition, almost $222M in current state funding would be targeted to foundation-level spending, bringing the total amount of credited state funding to nearly $400M, or the amount suggested in the Post Audit study. The base plan calls for an increase in the base state aid per pupil of $50, an increase in at-risk weighting worth an additional $47M, a $30M increase in special education, an increase in funding for all non-low enrollment schools of a little over $14M, and a little over $22M toward a new density at-risk factor that addresses the unique needs of districts with a high density of students in the free lunch/at-risk category. Under the proposed plan, Hutchinson’s USD #308 would qualify for nearly $1M from this new funding category. Look for the number of qualifying districts to increase, however, as the bill is worked, which might reduce funding in this category to the 6 who qualify under the bill as introduced. Also, $500K would be available annually in bi-lingual teacher scholarships under the plan.

The base plan would also result in increased local option budget authority of nearly $20M plus nearly $13M more in supplemental state aid. Policy changes under the proposed plan include a more restrictive definition of vocational education with a higher weight to apply to those more expensive vocational programs that meet the new definition. Schools would enjoy more flexibility in their budgets provided the schools report accurately actual expenditure per category. There would be an increased level of state monitoring of schools found to be deficient in any area by the state, with affected schools being required to reallocate existing funds to address the areas of deficiency.

The question now becomes one of whether we can find sufficient existing resources to fund the plan, given the fact that the Governor and legislature have agreed that there will be no tax increases to fund schools this year. The House School Finance Committee, of which I am a member, will begin hearings on the plan Wednesday.

House & Senate Committees worked hard last week to meet this week’s deadline to work non-exempt bills in the House of origin. Committees will finalize their work by Tuesday and we’ll spend all day Wednesday, Thursday and Friday on the floor working bills.

One measure that failed to make it out of committee was the proposal to repeal last year’s law allowing in-state tuition for children of undocumented Kansas aliens who have graduated from Kansas high schools or have received GED’s. The controversial measure failed on a tie vote in the House Federal & State Affairs Committee.

However, the House passed a measure that has been defeated in years past to require booster seats in passenger vehicles for those children who are in between child safety seats and adult restraints. The House also approved legislation to prohibit leaving children unattended in vehicles.

The House has also taken action on a massive tax relief measure to phase out the machinery & equipment property tax. The bill picked up a floor amendment that would increase the homestead property tax exemption from $20K to $30K of appraised value on residences. The bill was also amended to increase the income eligibility threshold for claimants over age 65 from $27K to $50K.
In the House Judiciary Committee we passed out a measure that would call for the collection of DNA samples from all persons arrested for felony violations of the criminal law to strengthen our DNA database and assist law enforcement in Kansas and other states with unsolved crimes. Today we’ll work in committee the proposal to enact Jessica’s law, a measure that enhances penalties for sex crimes involving children. We’ll also consider legislation that would suspend the driving privileges of those who refuse to pay their child support and another measure that would increase the usage of mandated ignition interlock devices for persistent drunk drivers.

The Senate has passed over legislation that would facilitate voluntary local government consolidation, a measure I had drafted and introduced to streamline the process and break down barriers at the state level to such voluntary consolidations to save taxpayer money. The bill was amended to require a 60% vote of those affected, but this is an improvement over past provisions in other consolidation proposals which required dual majorities of city and county voters.

Look for the House to float out a school finance proposal this week to begin gauging support for a compromise measure that will garner bi-partisan support in the House & Senate and from the Governor. The Kansas Supreme Court has retained jurisdiction over the school finance case and will await the legislature’s school finance bill for this year before announcing its decision. This has frustrated many of us in the legislature as the Court’s decisions have been unpredictable and inconsistent and we are wary of yet another special session over school finance this year. Measures pending in both the House & Senate would limit the Court’s role over school finance public policy and expenditures from the state treasury, something that the state constitution has always reserved to the people’s elected representatives. Recent Kansas Supreme Court orders have forced expenditures of additional tax dollars on education, something many of us view as a violation of the separation of powers guaranteed by the constitution. We’ll continue to increase spending on K-12 education and target that spending on the areas of need, but we have tired of the Court’s meddling in matters of public policy and are looking for some closure on the school finance litigation.

Waiting in the wings is litigation that has been filed by representatives of the developmentally disabled which is patterned after the school finance litigation as Plaintiffs have found what they perceive as a friendly court to get around a legislature that has not agreed to give them all the funding they have requested. Historically, the remedy for disagreement with the legislature has been at the ballot box. Now, the trend seems to be to appeal legislative decisions to the courts under the claim that the state constitution guarantees adequate funding no matter what the fiscal consequences to the state may be.

Committee action was heavy last week. The house taxation committee passed out a heavily amended manufacturing machinery and equipment tax exemption bill that would rebate monies to counties that lose money due to the exemption. The exemption would become effective July 1 of this year and could mean up to $157m in tax savings for Kansas businesses. The rebate to the counties would be 100% for FY 2008 & 2009 and would decrease 20% each year thereafter through FY 2013. The house committee wants to start the exemption in July instead of the governor’s suggested start date of January 2007 to provide general motors an early break on its investment in a new car line at its Kansas City, Kansas plant. We’re expected to debate the proposal on the house floor tomorrow.

The senate tax committee heard a proposal Thursday to phase out over 3 years the estate tax, which currently produces a little over $50m per year. The tax would slide to about $43m in 2008, $32m in 2009 and to about $15m in 2010.

Monday the house is set to take final action on two safety proposals to protect young vehicle passengers. The house passed to final action last week a bill making it a punishable offense to leave children unattended in vehicles. We also passed to final action a bill mandating booster seats for children in the 4-8 age range and who are less than 80 pounds or less than 4’9” in height. The latter measure would add Kansas to the 35 other states who already have a booster seat law. Booster seat usage has been shown to reduce injuries to this class of young passengers by nearly 60%. Injuries in this age group are almost always to the head and neck. Warning tickets only would be given the first year, followed by a fine that would be waived upon showing proof of purchase of an approved booster seat.

The senate has passed over to the house legislation that would add Kansas to the list of 46 other states with concealed carry laws. The strong vote in the senate is expected to be duplicated in the house but it remains unclear whether there will be sufficient votes in the house to override an expected veto by the governor.

The senate has also passed legislation that would allow Kansans to order wines that aren’t carried in local stores. The proposal would have the wine orders shipped to local licensees who could charge a fee and collect the liquor tax. Look for the house to consider allowing direct shipments to Kansas consumers. Also, look for a bill that would allow for wine tasting and sales at the Kansas state fair in an effort to showcase Kansas farm wineries. The state’s microbreweries may also want to get tacked on to the bill at some point.

Parents who fail to pay child support could see their drivers licenses suspended if a proposal heard by the house judiciary committee passes. The law would not apply to those on a payment plan or on a wage withholding order, but would apply to any parent failing to pay any of a current child support order.

Finally, the house judiciary committee held hearings on a proposal to change the selection process for members of the state supreme court last week. Under the proposal, the governor would select a nominee and the nominee would then be subject to senate confirmation – mirroring the federal system. A proposal heard in the house federal & state affairs committee would amend the constitution to prohibit the courts from closing public schools.

Well, the 2006 legislative session is well underway as we head into the third full week. We started session late on Monday to accommodate those of us attending president bush’s Landon Lecture series speech in Manhattan. The President’s visit to Kansas is a welcome prelude to the weekend’s scheduled Kansas Day celebration.

My assignments for this year remain the same. I continue to chair the house judiciary committee and serve as vice-chair of the house select committee on school finance. I also serve on the rules committee and the house budget subcommittee overseeing the budgets of the judicial branch, Dept. of transportation, Dept. of Revenue and KPERS. Needless to say, I’ll be as busy as ever and even more so this year as the house corrections and juvenile justice committee was dissolved and the bulk of their work transferred to my judiciary committee. We’ll handle the crime legislation this year and there are a number of high-profile issues that will be addressed, including Jessica’s law dealing with sex predators, a proposal to create school and residential buffer zones for sex predators living in our communities and legislation dealing with the collection and analysis of criminal DNA.

I’ll continue to be involved in the pending school finance litigation and debate over school funding. Last week I reported on the post audit report on costs associated with delivering k-12 education in the state. For school year 2006-2007, the post audit team estimated that state spending would need to increase a minimum of $316m under the inputs approach and $399m under the outcomes-based approach. We’ve been working with the $399m figure associated with the outcomes-based model. While that figure has concerned many lawmakers and Kansas taxpayers, it’s important to keep in mind that these numbers assume that the state would be funding 100% of these costs. In fact, Kansas currently funds k-12 education 55% at the state level, 35% from the local level and 10% from federal monies. This percentage of state funding is greater than any of the 5 nearby states. The post audit team did not include monies raised and spent locally, nor did they count the over $200m in state funds flowing to local school districts to equalize local option budgets and the millions of dollars the state puts into teachers’ KPERS retirement. Local option budgets supply over $400m in additional school funding. How we count education dollars will be an important issue this session as there is no requirement that the state fund 100% of k-12 spending. Look for us to revise budgeting for schools to capture all funding from all sources and provide an equitable mix from state, local and federal sources. We plan to resolve the school finance litigation issue without a tax increase of any kind and make school budgeting more transparent for Kansas taxpayers.

This year’s session got underway last Monday with the emotional swearing in of representative lee Tafanelli of Ozawkie. Tafanelli, commander of Kansas national guard units deployed in Iraq, just returned from his tour of duty, one that had forced him to resign his legislative seat. Former state representative Joann Flower assumed his position while he was deployed and his unit returned in time for him to resume his legislative duties this session. Popular and respected by both his republican colleagues and with democrats, lee’s return and ceremonial swearing in with his wife and two children at his side was moving and reminded all of us of the sacrifices our troops have made and are making every day in Iraq. Tafanelli addressed the house with conviction and reported that Kansas guardsmen and troops from all over America were making a difference in Iraq and deserved and needed our ongoing support.

Monday night’s state of the state speech by Gov. Sebelius was disappointing to say the least. She offered no real vision for the state in 2006, sent a budget to the legislature that seriously under funds k-12 education needs and tried to take personal credit for legislative initiatives that were neither her idea nor promoted by her office. She claimed she had called on the legislature to put cold medicines behind the counter so meth dealers couldn’t get to them when in fact the measure was one initiated by a senator and pre-filed as a bill last session. The governor ultimately signed the bill but wasn’t involved otherwise. She claimed in her speech to have reduced the state employee workforce since coming into office but a tally of state positions shows the numbers of state workers has actually increased by over 1200 while our private sector has lost 14,400 jobs since Aug. 2000.

The biggest news of the week, however, was the release of the legislative division of post audit’s much anticipated cost study analysis of k-12 education. We commissioned the study last year in the wake of school finance litigation and an unprecedented mandate from the Kansas supreme court to pour 100’s of millions of additional dollars into k-12 education. I’ll be reporting on the study and the legislature’s response in the coming weeks. In summary, the post audit report used two approaches in trying to estimate the costs of k-12 education in the state – one based on inputs, the courses and areas of instruction required by state law and one based on outcomes – the cost of meeting the ever-increasing performance standards adopted by the state board of education. For school year 2006-2007 the post audit team estimated that state spending would need to increase a minimum of $316m under the inputs approach and $399m under the outcomes-based approach. It’s important to keep in mind, however, that these numbers assume that the state would be funding 100% of these costs. In fact, Kansas currently funds k-12 education 55% at the state level, 35% from the local level and 10% from federal monies. This percentage of state funding is greater than any of the 5 nearby states. The post audit team did not include monies raised and spent locally, nor did they count the over $200m in state funds flowing to local school districts to equalize local option budgets.

Probably the most sobering aspect of the cost study was it’s suggestion that low enrollment districts should actually receive less, not more funding, and that the very large urban districts receive the lion’s share of any increases. Ironically, the school districts who actually sued the state wouldn’t fare nearly as well as larger urban districts who didn’t participate in the suit. In fact, $238m of the recommended increase in state spending would go to address students living in poverty. 4 districts, Kansas city, Kansas city turner, Topeka and Wichita would see huge increases under a recommended new weight called the urban poverty weight. Depending on which approach was used, as many as 220 school districts would see a proposed decrease in funding. These are mainly the small rural districts. Included in the potential hit list are Fairfield, Pretty Prairie and haven school districts in Reno County. Other Reno county schools would see only modest increases compared to larger, more urban districts.

Needless to say, there is much work ahead. I continue to serve as vice-chair of the house school finance committee and will be very involved in crafting this years school finance bill. I also serve as chairman of the house judiciary committee and will have such issues as imminent domain and sex predator legislation in my committee this year.