Legislative Updates, 2007 Session:

LEGISLATIVE E-REPORT - Issue No. 10 - APRIL 17, 2007

Janis McMillen, President & Editor

Paul Johnson has provided an update on energy issues and status of legislation. Please note the public hearing to be held by the Kansas Corporation Commission in Emporia on April 30 .

Your legislators are still at home; now is a great opportunity to talk with them about budget issues (see E-Report No. 9) and about your thoughts on energy policies in Kansas .

ENERGY LEGISLATION AND UTILITY ISSUES UPDATE

The Kansas Legislature has passed several pieces of energy legislation involving several aspects of energy production and energy conservation. At the same time, the major electric utilities in Kansas – Westar and Kansas City Power & Light have announced significant new initiatives to institute energy efficiency programs and invest in large-scale wind projects while scaling back some power plant plans. The Kansas Corporation Commission is at a point to mandate ratemaking principles that will incorporate energy efficiency programs into the utilities' plans for long-term power supply needs.

The most important legislation that has passed, and has been signed by the Governor, is listed below:

HB 2036 – amends two statutes regarding energy efficiency of certain commercial, industrial and residential buildings. In regard to commercial and industrial buildings, the new 2006 International Energy Conservation Code is adopted as the energy efficiency standard for new buildings. For residential buildings, existing law is amended to require disclosure of energy efficiency information to the prospective buyer through a new disclosure form at any time upon request.

HB 2038 – creates a property tax exemption for a second nuclear unit at Wolfcreek, income tax incentives for fuel storage and blending of biofuels, tax incentives for renewable electric cogeneration facilities and certain waste heat utilization systems.

HB 2169 – enacts a new law authorizing the Kansas Development Finance Authority to issue revenue bonds to pay for energy conservation measures on behalf of state agencies, counties, cities and federal entities with facilities in Kansas (such as the expansion at Fort Riley). The utility savings from these energy conservation measures are used to repay these bonds.

Sub. for HB 2278 – authorizes electric and natural gas utilities to enter into agreements with utility customers and their landlords whereby the utility will finance the purchase and installation of energy conservation measures. Customers who participate in the program will pay for the improvements through their monthly bills.

HB 2419 – creates the Carbon Dioxide Reduction Act to provide tax incentives for the sequestration of carbon dioxide through underground storage. The KCC will regulate both existing and future underground carbon dioxide sequestration.

Kansas City Power & Light has announced an agreement with the Sierra Club and the Concerned Citizens of Platte County, MO. This agreement includes expanded energy conservation programs, the expansion of wind purchases from 150 MW to 500 MW and the installation of the best air pollution equipment for both the new coal plant at Iatan and the older existing coal plants. Westar – the largest electric utility in Kansas with 667,000 customers – has solicited bids for 500 MW of wind energy after years of rejecting any interest in wind energy. Westar is also requesting permission to build two new natural gas peaking turbines near Emporia for a cost of $318 million to meet their projected summer peak load of electricity and use these peaking turbines to balance out the intermittency of wind energy. In addition Westar is developing five energy efficiency programs to curb 89 MW from their expected summer peak of 4,850 MW today to 5,860 MW's by year 2016.

The Kansas Corporation Commission has agreed to hold a public hearing on the Westar rate case on Monday April 30 - 7pm at the Memorial Student Union on the campus of Emporia State University . The public will have an opportunity to ask questions of Westar and the KCC utilities division staff as well as make public comments to the KCC Commissioners. The KCC is at a defining moment to decide how energy efficiency will be incorporated into future energy supply plans and how these utility financed investments will be funded by the customers.

Return to Index, Top of page

LEGISLATIVE E-REPORT - Issue No. 9 - APRIL 5, 2007

Janis McMillen, President & Editor

Paul has provided an update of where various social service programs stand at the end of the legislative session until legislators return on April 25 to finalize the budget.

Social Service Funding Update

The Kansas Legislature has now recessed until April 25. While passing a basic budget for the State, most of the Governor’s enhancements to social service programs were deleted from the basic budget and will be decided in the Omnibus Bill. At the same time, the Kansas Legislature is facing the rebuilding of certain programs. The delivery of mental health service is being reworked. The crisis of the privatized foster care system continues as Kansas scrambles to change the delivery of the Level V & VI foster care services for our most troubled youth. The future of providing basic cash and medical assistance to disabled adults through General Assistance is still up in the air. A health care debate rages on as competing forces debate the future of governmental health care versus subsidizing the private insurance market to provide the services. This may well be the center stage debate in the 2008 legislative session.

There are several enhancements for both SRS and the Kansas Health Policy Authority (KHPA) that will be considered in the final Omnibus Bill. For SRS the programs impacted are: 1) the Pre-K pilot program, 2) waiting lists for the physically disabled, 3) expansion of Early Head Start, 4) job training and retention grants for welfare families, 5) Independent Living Center grants, 6) increased staffing and 7) waiting lists for the developmentally disabled. For KHPA, the largest issue remaining is the Governor’s recommendation of $4 million in state funds to match $6 million in federal funds to cover all children 0-5 with health care. KHPA has had some staffing shortfalls in constructing this new agency and processing all of the applications for health coverage.

Mental health services will change as of July 1, 2007 as a managed care model will be implemented. The Community Mental Health Centers (CHMC), who hold the primary control of mental health services, have developed a Prepaid Ambulatory Health Plan (PAHP) that will register mental health providers statewide. CHMC’s have held an arrangement with Kansas that in return for a state grant they must serve all Kansans. This contract is in addition to the payments they receive from the different health care programs such as Medicaid. Many of the CHMC’s cannot meet the demand for services, have long waiting lists or do not cover certain rural areas of the state adequately. Quarterly reports will start coming back to the Legislature containing information about compliance with federal “any willing provider” requirements and whether people are getting access to additional providers. The Kansas House Social Services Budget committee does note that “while it supports access to additional providers outside of the CHMC’s, it does not want it to impact the ability of the CHMC’s to provide comprehensive services”. The State’s contract to the CHMC’s has not increased since mid-1990.

The federal government has questioned the Medicaid funded mental health services provided to children in state custody in Level V and VI treatment facilities. These group homes must change into Psychiatric Residential Treatment Facilities that have a traditional medical model versus the existing social services model. These changes will necessitate the hiring of medical personnel for these group homes. The new federal guidelines are still being developed and there is real uncertainty whether SRS or the Juvenile Justice Authority will provide adequate compensation to cover the higher costs for these group homes. Certain group homes may not be able to raise the funding upfront to make this medical model conversion. The Budget committee “recognizes that additional resources will be needed to address the change in inpatient services and for other services required outside of these facilities for children who are determined not to meet that level of service but may need intensive services”. There will be funding uncertainty in providing the appropriate services for months if not years to come.

The future of General Assistance (GA) and MediKan for disabled adults is still a work in progress. Most of these disabled clients will not qualify for the federal disability programs that are intended for life long inability to work. The GA clients who do not qualify for the federal programs have serious physical or mental disabilities that inhibit work for varying periods of time. Prior to the changes in eligibility to GA instigated in September of 2006, approximately 300 persons statewide were qualifying monthly for GA but with the new disability criterion adopted by the Kansas Health Policy Authority, only 50 clients are now qualifying. The overall number of GA clients has fallen from 4,650 in July of 2006 to 3,950 in February of 2007. Advocates have been meeting with SRS and KHPA to see if the existing criterion for eligibility can be modified to cover the temporarily disabled. A report on these deliberations will be presented to the Kansas Legislature at Omnibus time.

The health care debate will be center stage next year. The Kansas Legislature has decided to increase the eligibility standard for parents of Medicaid children from 37% of the federal poverty level today to 100% of the poverty level in three years. This should bring coverage to 24,000 adults at a total cost of $77 million ($3200 per person per year). The question remains: will this be done within the Medicaid program or will private health insurance policies be available to serve these clients? The Federal Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 passed by Congress opened up many options to change and partially privatize the Medicaid program. These options will be at the heart of the health care debate next year. It is still uncertain whether the Governor will be successful this year to cover all of the children ages 0-5 through the expansion of the public health programs. Congress must re-authorize the State’s Children Health Insurance Program. If the federal funding is not significantly increased, some children may lose coverage and any expansion of the program is doomed. For detailed coverage on these health issues go to the website www.khi.org.

Return to Index, Top of page

LEGISLATIVE E-REPORT - Issue No. 8 - March 25, 2007

Janis McMillen, President & Editor

The legislature will be in session Monday through Wednesday of this week, with some conference committees meeting later in the week, followed by a several week break until the last week in April.

One of the key issues to be finalized is the state budget. Paul Johnson has offered some insights into this process.

Budgetary Challenges

The Kansas Legislature is striving to find the right balance between tax cuts and spending priorities. The Kansas economy has been growing and the State has been collecting more revenues but there are many challenges to adequately fund existing programs and future obligations. The economy is built primarily on agriculture, aviation and the oil & gas industry – all of which are very susceptible to great economic swings. Several tax cuts were enacted in Kansas in the late 1990’s and then the economy hit very tough times with the 9/11 attacks in 2001, leading to very difficult budget choices. Over the past few years, lawmakers have relied on issuing bonds for transportation, state building projects and shoring up the retirement fund for state employees. The payments for these bonds will continue for several years. A new three year public education plan was passed last year that mandates increased funding.

Tax reduction proposals have passed the House that would eliminate the corporate franchise tax, reduce corporate income tax rates, eliminate taxation on social security benefits, increase the earned income tax credit for low-income working families and expand the homestead property tax refund. Proponents of these tax cuts insist that lower taxes will generate more economic development in Kansas that, in turn, will produce more tax receipts for the State. The Senate has decided to wait on any major tax cuts for now until the full budget picture is clarified. The Kansas Legislature will break on April 3 and return on April 25 for the wrap-up session. On April 16, a new revenue projection for the State for the next 18 months will be developed. This new estimate will be a key factor as the budget debate starts up on April 25. The budget picture in Kansas looks very good for 2008 but less so in 2009 and 2010 as future obligations such as bond payments and higher health costs must be funded. With certain tax cuts a possibility and higher education spending locked in, the future of key social service programs for the disabled, the mentally ill, medical care for children and community services for the elderly will be in serious jeopardy if economic growth does not stay robust. While legislators are on break, talk with your senator and representative to let her/him know where your budget priorities are.

Update on legislation we’ve been following

ELECTIONS SB 283, which was requested by LWVK for the purpose of offering county election officers more flexibility in how they staff the polls, had a good hearing in the House Elections Committee, with no opponents and no concerns raised. The House Committee did not work the bill, thus it is unlikely the bill can advance this year. However, its stays “alive” until the 2008 session, and in reality, the bill would not have an impact until the 2008 elections. SB 169 is the “photo ID” bill that would require a photo identification be presented by each voter at every election. In the testimony I presented against this bill, the issues that seemed to resonate most with legislators were: 1) data showing that requiring identification from voters at the polls suppresses voter turn-out, particularly among ethnic minorities, and 2) there are no substantive cases of voter fraud being committed by illegal immigrants. In addition, Senator Haley (D-Kansas City) noted that the cost associated with obtaining a birth certificate to prove citizenship costs $12, equivalent, in his word, to a poll tax. This bill did not come out of the House Elections Committee; however, there is an interest by House leadership to advance some sort of legislation yet this session, targeted at preventing the possibility of illegal immigrants attempting to vote. Finally, there is still interest in passing legislation regarding identifying who is paying for robo-calls; however, this means the attempt to outlaw robo-calls is not going anywhere this session.

WOMEN’S ISSUES HB 2006 (also known as Alexa’s law), and described in Action Alert No. 1, proposes that an individual who harms or kills a pregnant woman would be charged with two felonies, essentially giving “personhood” to a fetus at any state of gestation. The bill passed the House, but will not come out of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Its dead for this session. HCR 5017 (ERA) was introduced by Rep. Flaharty (D-Wichita) to put into the state constitution “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the state or any of its political or taxing subdivisions on account of sex.” The House Federal and State Affairs Committee finally agreed to hold a hearing, but scheduled it for the last day of the session (March 23) for hearing bills. The lobbyist for NOW asked the Committee Chair to pull the bill, with the thought that support could be developed over the summer/fall, and have a hearing during the 2008 session.

OTHER HB 2140 is the bill that mandates English as the official language of Kansas. In its original iteration when it passed the House, it contained a provision to provide $500,000 for local entities to offer English language classes for non-natives. This provision was removed in the Senate. The bill was in a conference committee at the end of the week.

Return to Index, Top of page

LEGISLATIVE E-REPORT - Issue No. 7 - March 24, 2007

Janis McMillen, President & Editor

A "PRIMER" ON CURRENT UTILITY REGULATION AND ENERGY ISSUES

Paul Johnson

The regulation of energy utilities in Kansas may be at a point of change. Governor Sebelius has two important appointments to make to the Kansas Corporation Commission (KCC). While the KCC is overworked and overwhelmed with utility cases, they have some very important utility cases before them. Unfortunately the Kansas Legislature has given the electric and natural gas utilities just about every change in regulation they have requested.

The KCC regulates 75% of the electric and natural gas sales in Kansas. Kansas Gas Service provides natural gas service to two-thirds of all customers in the state. Westar provides electric service to 667,000 of the 1 million households in Kansas. The KCC is a three-member commission with the members nominated by the Governor and approved by the Kansas Senate. The Chairman of the KCC is Brian Moline and his term was up in April of last year but no new nomination has been made. A second member of the KCC is Robert Krehbiel – a former state representative and lobbyist for the independent oil and gas industry – and his term is up this April. If the Governor is serious about updating utility regulation in Kansas and promoting more energy conservation in the state, these two KCC positions are critically important and appointing a consumer advocate is vital.

The KCC has provided very little leadership in balancing the power production proclivities of the energy utilities in Kansas and the wisest use of natural gas and electric service in Kansas. Kansas has been last of all states in providing energy conservation programs by utilities or state government. The KCC sees its role strictly as a regulator and, similar to the public role of the courts, the KCC provides no policy leadership. Many other public service commissions in other states have been instrumental in framing an energy debate that balances more power production versus cost effective energy conservation programs. Since there is no free market with regulated electric or natural gas utilities, the KCC must enforce that balance between fair utility profits and efficient, sufficient utility service.

The legislature has tightened the time frames on the KCC, so rate cases or pre-approvals for new plants must be decided in 6 - 9 months or the utility is awarded their request. Utilities can spend any amount on their rate cases and these expenses must be paid by their customers. The KCC is funded by a surcharge on the utilities they regulate, but the amount of funding is far smaller than the rate case expenses allowed to utilities. (I would like to see legislation that would limit utility rate case expenses to what the KCC has to spend on a given case. If the utilities want to spend more, let their shareholders foot the bill.)

Westar now has a pre-approval case before the KCC asking for the green light to build two natural gas-fired combustion turbines near Emporia for a cost of $318 million. Westar is mandated to file a conservation plan along with this application. While Westar assumes a 2% annual electric growth from now to 2016 that will increase their system peak from 4,827 megawatts (MW) to 5,841 MW, the most that current conservation programs can accomplish in those 10 years is a saving of 89 MW by 2016. The conservation program for low income and seniors consists of pipe wrap, providing one compact fluorescent bulb, window film and wrapping the water heater for a total of 1500 customers out of their 667,000 customers. (The expert brought in by Westar for testimony on these conservation programs has extensive background in meaningful energy conservation cases around the country.) So far a public hearing has not been set for this Westar case and it may take some pressure to get such a hearing. The KCC has yet to fund a serious independent “integrated resource plan” that would document in detail what opportunities we have with demand side management programs. This plan may cost $500,000 but compared to the cost of an unnecessary $150 million gas turbine, it could direct us towards less costly energy efficiency investments.

A similar story of imbalance could be told about the development of wind energy in Kansas. Our rural electric co-ops are doing all they can to block such wind development so they can build more coal and Wolfcreek II. Mark Parkinson seems only interested in large wind farm developments and constructing the necessary power lines to serve these facilities. Smaller “community wind” projects could be financed locally, with more economic benefits provided to the farmer and the local governmental unit. (The large wind farms are now tax exempt so any payments to local government are at the largesse of the wind farm owner.) Community wind has an easier time using existing power lines.

Westar Update and Utility Issues

Three years ago, the legislature passed a law allowing utilities the right to ask the Kansas Corporation Commission to pre-approve a plan for construction of new power plants. The debate is still ongoing whether utility customers will have to pay for these new plants while they are being constructed. This legislation did not mandate that a public hearing be held in conjunction with these pre-approval requests. The legislation did require that the utilities file a report on their conservation plans that could lower the electric demand.

Westar has now filed a pre-approval request for two 300 MW natural gas fired turbines near Emporia. The total cost of this project will be $318 million. Electricity costs from these units will be directly impacted by the uncertainties of future natural gas prices. As noted above, the Westar system peak will increase to 5,841 MW by 2016, and Westar’s five conservation programs for commercial, residential and industrial customers would yield savings of only 89 MW. Westar claims that these conservation programs are just a start of the conservation measures they will offer but the power plant construction goes on.

The Kansas Corporation Commission (KCC) has opened a “general investigation regarding energy efficiency programs”. The threshold question in this investigation is the extent to which the KCC has legal authority to require or encourage electric and natural gas utilities to offer energy efficiency programs. Kansas law provides the KCC with authority to ensure that utilities provide reasonably efficient and sufficient services at just and reasonable rates. A Kansas law passed in 1983 allows utilities a higher rate of return if they invest in renewable resources, conservation or energy efficiency, but utilities have never used this provision. Given that the KCC has the authority to approve such investments in energy efficiency, how will the utilities be compensated for such investments? One simple answer is for the utility to assist a given customer with an energy efficient appliance such as a new air conditioner and that customer then pays off the air conditioner through their utility bill. Another option is to see the investment in new air conditioners as a cheaper alternative to having to build a new power plant to supply electricity to old, inefficient air conditioners, so all customers are charged. The KCC has yet to compile a sophisticated electric power end use study so we understand what uses of electricity contribute to our peak load use and the costs of energy efficiency investments versus the cost of new power plants. Kansas does have a summer electric peak load that is air conditioning driven. In states such as California, energy efficiency investments for new motors and lights cost half that of new power plant construction.

The Governor’s most important decision in this energy debate is whom she will appoint to the KCC. The Governor has been quoted as saying that Kansas can reduce its energy consumption by 30% through conservation. This effort will have to start with the KCC since Kansas has far more influence over electric and natural gas service than transportation energy consumption. For the record, the Governor’s brother is a nationwide expert in energy conservation programs provided by utilities. KCC members serve at the pleasure of the Governor and there is no law that KCC members with expired terms must be replaced.

Energy and legislation

On the energy front, several energy bills are now bogging down in the political swamp. Lawmakers are now starting to look for other bills they can use to pass some stalled bills. One is SB 128 that would establish an energy advisory committee to assist utilities with the development of energy conservation programs. Conservatives in the House do not want more governmental involvement. Similarly the bills establishing energy standards for new homes, commercial and industrial developments have stalled. The bill on allowing customers to increase the amount of electricity they can sell back to the utilities has hit some roadblocks.

After the legislature goes break next week, I will provide some energy legislation that League members can talk with legislators about during their break (April 3 – 5).

Return to Index, Top of page

LEGISLATIVE E-REPORT - Issue No. 6 - March 4, 2007

Janis McMillen, President & Editor

FOLLOW-UP ON LEGISLATION

HB 2006 , as described in Action Alert No. 1, proposes that an individual who harms or kills a pregnant woman would be charged with two felonies, essentially giving “personhood” to a fetus at any state of gestation. The bill passed the House, and is now in the Senate Judiciary Committee. To date, no hearing has been scheduled. Action Alert No. 2 was to advise of the possibility that legislators were going to amend into some bills being discussed on the House floor a repeal of the in-state tuition law for children of undocumented immigrants; this law was passed two years ago, yet some legislators have continually tried to repeal it. A new bill, HB 2367 , now contains this provision (see below). This bill will have a hearing in the House Federal and State Affairs Committee on Thursday, March 8. I plan to give testimony opposing the bill, focusing mainly on repeal of the in-state tuition law. HB 2200 , as described in Action Alert No. 3, would strip away any legal protection for K-12 teachers if they were charged with presenting allegedly obscene material that may be contained in books recommended for reading or other educational materials. This bill passed out of committee, and after debate on the House floor, it was referred to the House Education committee, a tactic that may essentially “kill” further consideration of the bill.

NEW LEGISLATION

HB 2367 , mentioned above, HB 2367 prohibits illegal aliens residing in the United States from receiving state or local benefits, such as welfare, health, retirement, food assistance, unemployment, and post-secondary education , except when they are required by federal law. The bill specifies the required methods of proof and documentation. Regarding the in-state tuition, this would likely reduce revenues to the colleges and universities where these students are currently enrolled. Additionally, as provided by the original law, these students and/or their parents, must be in the process of gaining legal status in order for the student to receive in-state tuition.

HCR 5017 was introduced by Rep. Flaharty (D-Wichita) to put into the state constitution “ Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the state or any of its political or taxing subdivisions on account of sex.'' As you know, Kansas was one of the first states to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment; however, Congress has not been able to act on this, as several more states must first ratify the Amendment. Passage of such an amendment to the Kansas Constitution would enact these equal rights in our own states. The bill has not yet been scheduled for a hearing.

SB 309 would enact the “ Kansas Health Care Insurance Connector” to provide Kansans with greater access to and choice and portability of health insurance products. This is the plan that was discussed on the Barnett/Wagle gubernatorial campaign trail last fall. Hearings have been held in the Senate Health Care Strategies Committee. I expect Jim McLean to offer comments on this bill when he speaks at Day at the Capitol on Thursday, March 8.

KANSAS BUDGET DIVIDE

Paul Johnson

There is quite a divide between the leaders of the Kansas House and the Kansas Senate on budgetary priorities. The Kansas House has passed a number of budgets such as the Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services or the Kansas Health Policy Authority where all of the Governor's enhancements have been removed. At the same time the Kansas House is moving forward with many tax cuts such as the elimination of the corporate franchise tax. The Kansas Senate has been slower to move budgets but has indicated they will work budgets normally with minor changes and pass modest tax cuts.

The Kansas House is pushing for an early adjournment (March 30) of the regular part of this session so the veto session could be expanded to handle the budgetary differences. The Kansas Senate would like to adjourn on the regular date of April 6 and come back on April 25 for a short, ‘technical clean-up' veto session. The Kansas House and the Kansas Senate must pass a joint resolution to set these adjournment dates. The consensus revenue experts - who forecast the income figures for the State that must be used by the Governor and the Kansas Legislature – will meet on April 16 and probably increase the revenue picture. The Kansas House is maneuvering to use the increased revenues as the necessary political pressure to push through expanded tax cuts while holding the line on most budgetary enhancements.

The budgetary horizon for Kansas is filled with many challenges. Health care will continue to cost more and if Kansas wants to cover more uninsured children that will cost millions of new dollars. The existing Highway Plan will end in 2009 and a new Highway Plan will cost even more. (Lawmakers could increase user fees to fund a larger transportation plan but this last plan had the transportation special interest taking sales tax from the regular State General Fund.) Unless there is a major change in prosecuting and detaining criminals, Kansas ' prisons are full and a new prison will have to be considered. Over the next three years, the Kansas ' estate tax is completely eliminated thus costing the state $40 million a year. The Kansas Public Employees Retirement System is under-funded and state general revenue funds will be required to shore up this deficit. Kansas ' lawmakers will work overtime to find the right balance of budgetary priorities.

Health care issues are likely to receive considerable attention this month. You can find more information on this very important topic on the Kansas Health Institute's website ( www.khi.org ). You can also plan to attend Day at the Capitol on March 8 to hear Jim McLean give us an overview of the broad range of health care issues being proposed by legislators and by the Governor. See you there!

Return to Index, Top of page

LEGISLATIVE E-REPORT - Issue No. 5 - February 25, 2007

Janis McMillen, President & Editor

The legislators are on a short break following “turn-around” last week. Committee and floor activity will resume Weds. Feb. 28. Now is a good time to talk with your legislator while s/he is home for this break.

ENERGY: HB 2036 provides for disclosure of thermal efficiency of certain commercial, industrial, and single family or 4-unit residential homes; for residential units, the disclosure must be provided to the buyer prior to signing a contract; also updates the Energy Conservation Code. This bill passed the Houses and has had a hearing in the Senate. HB 2037 would create tax incentives (for tax years 2007, 2008 and 2009) for energy efficiency improvements of non-owner occupied housing units. This bill passed the House and will have a Senate committee hearing on Feb. 28. HB 2405 provides tax incentives for investment in new renewable electric cogeneration facilities and waste heat utilization systems at electric generation facilities. The bill also would amend certain existing incentives for investment in alcohol fuels production facilities to include a broader range of input materials and fuel products. This bill passed the House and was introduced in the Senate.

CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM: SB101 increases the amount from $50 to $100 for the threshold for reporting in-kind contributions, or instances when an individual has paid for personal services provided without charge to a candidate, a candidate committee, party committee, or political committee. It also provides that the candidate, as well as the Treasurer, may sign campaign finance reporting forms. The bill passed the Senate and is in the House. The following two bills deal with poll agents; both bills passed the Senate and are in a House committee. SB 131 would establish Friday preceding an election as the deadline for the appointment of authorized poll agents, and would require the written appointment to be filed with the county election officer, and that a copy of the appointment is to be carried with the poll agent while on duty. SB 135 provides qualifications of authorized poll agents, to include that the person must be a registered Kansas Voter (unless they are younger than 18), reside either in the county where they will serve or in a contiguous county and require the poll agent to wear a badge. SB 195 would define as a class C misdemeanor crime any paid campaign advertisement made by telephonic means which expressly advocates the nomination, election or defeat of a clearly identified candidate for state or local office, when the advertisement is not followed by a statement indicating who paid for or sponsored the ad. The bill passed the Senate and is in the House. SB 196 requires the treasurer for a candidate for a state or local office to file a campaign contribution report listing information for each person (name and amount) who has made one or more contributions totaling $300 or more during the period that begins 11 days before a primary or general election and ending just before the Friday preceding the date of the election. This bill passed the Senate and is in the House. HB 2332 would require that election results be reported with the tabulated provisional and advance voting ballots, and to clarify that these results be allocated by precinct. The bill passed the House and will have a hearing in the Senate on March 1.

ELECTIONS SB 169 is a major change to identification requirements for voting, and we submitted testimony against this bill It would require photo identification of all in-person voters, change the list of acceptable identification forms for those voting by mail, require all voters to provide identification at every election, exempt certain voters (persons 65 and older, persons with temporary or permanent physical disability, persons on active military duty or U.S. citizens residing outside the U.S.) from the requirement to provide identification, and require proof of citizenship when registering to vote. The list of acceptable photographic identification forms includes: current Kansas driver’s license or Kansas nondriver’s identification card; U.S. passport; employee badge or identification; debit or credit card; student identification; or public assistance identification. The bill passed the Senate and is in a House committee. Sub SB 152 would require that a vacancy in the office of U. S. Senator, Secretary of State and State Treasurer be filled by election instead of gubernatorial appointment. The bill passed the Senate and is in a House committee. SB 160 would update the laws dealing with direct recording electronic (DRE) voting systems and repeal laws that provided for lever machines and punch card ballots. It would allow the county election officer and Board of County Commissioners, rather than citizens voting, to determine whether to adopt a system using electronic or electromechanical voting systems in the county; clarify that the Secretary of State’s examination of electronic voting systems is to include operating systems, firmware and software, and that the Secretary of State must certify such a system before it is used at any election; clarify the exception to the requirement that voting in absolute secrecy be provided, in relation to such voting systems, to indicate the exception applies to persons who request assistance due to temporary illness or disability or a lack of proficiency in reading the English language; require that electronic or electromechanical voting systems approved by the Secretary of State comply with the federal Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA) and other related federal law; authorize the Secretary of State to acquire electronic voting systems only to assist counties in meeting the HAVA requirement that each polling place have at least one voting device accessible to individuals with disabilities; update the definition of “electronic or electromechanical voting system fraud.” The bill is out of the Senate and in the House. SB 283, which was requested by LWVK as well as the Douglas County Election clerk, would give election officers flexibility in the work schedule for poll-workers, provided that the supervising judge and one poll-worker remain at the polling place the entire day. The bill passed the Senate and is in the House.
EDUCATION Sub. HB 2310 would require school district boards to adopt policies prohibiting bullying. The bill also would require each school district to adopt and implement strategic plans to address bullying, which would be required to include provisions for training and education for staff and students. The bill also would require the State Board of Education to authorize and assist school districts in the development of programs on character development for students in grades K-12. The bill passed the House and is in the Senate. HB 2072 would authorize school districts to levy a property tax on the tangible property within the district for up to two years for the purpose of financing all-day kindergarten. The district must have an adopted local option budget of at least 25%. Districts would be authorized to levy additional property taxes under this bill, with certain restrictions. SB 30 provides the required financing for Education, as passed last year, through FY 2009. The Senate and the House would establish the Keeping Education Promises Trust Fund, with the purpose that the Trust Fund set aside the second and third years (FY 2008 and FY 2009) of the increased State General Fund support that the 2006 Legislature approved in the school finance bill (SB 549) for general state aid, supplemental state aid, and special education service aid. SB 143 would simplify the provisions of law relating to the procedures school districts must follow when adopting local option budgets (LOB). The bill would provide that the board of education of a district could adopt an LOB which would not be subject to protest and election if: the proposed LOB authority did not exceed the amount it was authorized to adopt under this section prior to the effective date of this bill; or the proposed LOB did not exceed the statewide average percentage of LOB authorized for the preceding school year. Under this bill, if the district proposed to authorize the adoption of an LOB in excess of the above, the resolution would be subject to publication, protest and election.

MISCELLANEOUS  HB 2140 would designate English as the official language of the State of Kansas for all public documents and official public meetings, and would provide $500,000 to allow the Kansas State Department of Education to offer English language classes, training, or other educational services for non-native speakers and to seek assistance from listed groups in expanding awareness of the available services. . No state agency or local government would be required to provide documents in a language other than English, but may use other languages at the agency or local government’s discretion. The bill authorizes the use of braille to provide signage and documents, and communication in American sign language to accommodate persons with disabilities. Local agencies or governments have the discretion to publish official public documents in a language other than English or to permit a person who does not speak English to use an interpreter to communicate at an official public meeting. The bill is out of the House and now in the Senate. HB 5008 would abolish the non-partisan Supreme Court Nominating Commission and would provide that the Governor select a nominee to be considered for appointment to the Kansas Supreme Court, subject to approval by the Senate. We provided testimony in opposition to the proposed legislation. The resolution had a House hearing, but has not advanced. HB 2299 would prohibit cities and counties from creating a domestic partner registry or recognizing domestic partner relationships that are not recognized under state law. We submitted testimony in opposition to this proposed legislation. The bill had a hearing in the House, with no further action to date.

HB 2006 would enact Alexa's Law dealing with crimes against unborn children, such as fetal homicide. “Unborn child” would be defined to mean a living individual organism of the species homo sapiens, in utero, at any stage of gestation from fertilization to birth. The bill passed the House and is in the Senate. SB 163 would amend the Kansas Act Against Discrimination to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation in employment, public accommodations, and housing. The bill is in the Senate, after a committee hearing.

Return to Index, Top of page

LEGISLATIVE E-REPORT - Issue No. 4 - February 18, 2007

Janis McMillen, President & Editor

UPDATES ON FARM POLICY, LOCAL FOODS AND SOCIAL SERVICES

Paul Johnson

Farm Policy, Local Foods

(Just a reminder – LWVUS has an Agriculture Policy position that “promotes adequate supplies of food and fiber at reasonable prices to consumers, farms that are economically viable, farm practices that are environmentally sound and increased reliance on the free market to determine prices”. Although farm policies are determined by Congress, they have a significant impact on the farm economy in our state. And of course, the Food Stamp Program is determined by the US Dept. of Agriculture's Farm Policies).

Over the past 40 years, consolidation and concentration has been the trend for Kansas ' agriculture - heavily subsidized by federal farm policy. Farm Bills are the primary form of federal farm policy. Since 1978, the number of Kansas ' hog farms declined from 13,329 to 1,939 while the number of dairies declined from 5,691 to 1,042 with just 19 dairies of over 1,000 head now having sales of $152 million of the $244 million in dairy product sales. Farm Bill subsidies comprise a significant percentage of farm income in Kansas . From 1995 to 2004, USDA subsidies for Kansas ' farms totaled $7.9 Billion with 20% of the recipients receiving $6.6 Billion or 83% of these payments. Kansas has twice as many farmers over the age of 65 as compared to farmers under 35. While Kansas has 64,000 farms, the largest 5,000 farms account for 75% of all farm sales.

The debate over the 2007 Farm Bill is under way. Most major farm organizations want little change and thus further consolidation. Sustainable farming groups such as the Kansas Rural Center and hundreds of such advocates nationwide have proposed fundamental changes that would enhance economic opportunity for more farms and provide long-term environmental stewardship while increasing rural prosperity. 54% of the spending of Farm Bills is food programs such as the Food Stamp program and supplemental commodity programs. According to the USDA, 320,821 Kansans are food insecure in that they lack sufficient resources to afford enough food. The Food Stamp program in Kansas now serves 182,000 persons with $185 million in benefits. One half of these clients are children and this is the largest child nutrition program in Kansas . Only 64% of those eligible for food stamps in Kansas are receiving them. The minimum benefit for many elderly clients is just $10 and one proposal for the 2007 Farm Bill is to increase the minimum benefit to $25. For complete details on the farm program proposals and to receive alerts from the Kansas Rural Center , visit the website at www.kansasruralcenter.org .

Kansas has great potential to increase the sales of local fruits and vegetables. The taxable food sales in Kansas for 2006 were $5.6 Billion with 9.3% of that - $525 million – spent on fruits and vegetables. Only

$15.9 million – 3% of the total - was fruit and vegetable income to Kansas producers. If Kansas were to be self-sufficient in the most common fruits and vegetables, we would need a total of 77,779 acres in production but today Kansas has just 6,749 acres. In 1910, just the counties of Shawnee , Riley and Pottawatomie had 10,567 acres in produce while in 2002 those counties had 301 acres in produce. The Kansas Department of Commerce or Kansas State University spends very few dollars on promoting or researching local food sales. Given the nutritional interest in better diets and tying that to local foods, a request will be made to research these issues in a Kansas Legislature interim summer study.

Social Services – General Assistance and MediKan

As reviewed in Legislative E-Report No. 2, General Assistance (GA) program (cash assistance) and MediKan (medical services to disabled adults in Kansas ) now serve around 4500 clients statewide and the programs are funded solely by state dollars thus making them very vulnerable to budget cuts. The new Kansas Health Policy Authority (KHPA) wants to limit the program to those disabled adults that will qualify for federal disability programs. The glitch is that even severe mental illness does not usually qualify a client for federal disability programs, and the concern is that changes to MediKan may shift people from MediKan services to the community mental health system, state hospitals and jails. No additional funding provisions were made to address this possibility. KHPA went ahead with the changes and monthly approvals for MediKan and General Assistance dropped to 41 from an average of 300 in November, 2006. The request now from advocates for the mentally ill is to fully restore GA and MediKan for FY 2008 and develop a new program for clients not qualifying for the federal disability programs.

Social Services - Healthy Kansas First Five

This proposal from the Governor would attempt to cover all children ages 0 to 5 with health insurance. The plan is to expand health coverage through the Medicaid and Health Wave programs at a total cost of $10 million (including $4 million from the State General Fund). The Kansas Legislature has doubts that this new program would only cost the state $4 million. The Health Wave program is Kansas ' version of the federal State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) that now serves 37,000 children in Kansas . SCHIP must be reauthorized by Congress this year and the President's budget funds the program at a significantly lower level than it presently exists. Some estimate that the President's SCHIP budgetary request will only cover one-third of the number of children presently on the program. This issue of expanding Medicaid and Health Wave to serve more children will be the major social services debate between the Governor and the Kansas Legislature.

LEGISLATION

This week in the Legislature is known as “turn around”, meaning most bills must pass out of their “house of origin” by the end of this week to receive further consideration this year. Bills in the finance committees (Taxation, Appropriations, Ways and Means) and in Federal and State Affairs committee are exempt from this policy. Much of the action this week will be on the floor of the House and Senate to discuss and pass (or not) bills that have passed out of committee.

LWVK provided testimony on several bills over the last two weeks. SB 169 will require all voters to provide photo identification each time they vote, among other new identification requirements. We provided testimony against this bill. It passed the Senate and is now in House Elections and Local Government Committee. SB 283 , authored by Sen. Marci Francisco, would offer county election officers more flexibility in staffing the polls, including allowing poll workers, but not Supervising Judges, to work “split shifts”. LWVK requested this bill, based on our 2001-2002 Election Administration study; some county election officers also requested such legislation. The bill was heard in the Senate Elections and Local Government Committee. No one spoke in opposition to this bill. HCR 5008 would eliminate the non-partisan Supreme Court Nominating Commission and leave the Governor to appoint Supreme Court Justices, with confirmation by the Senate. We opposed this legislation last year, and again this year during a hearing in the House Federal and State Affairs Committee. HB 2299 had a hearing in the House Federal and State Affairs Committee, and we provided testimony in support of the legislation. This bill would prevent any county or city (as has been proposed in Lawrence ) from offering a Domestic Partnership Registry in their community. A major point of this legislation is to provide a government document acknowledging the partnership of two unmarried individuals (heterosexual or homosexual), in part because some companies who offer domestic partner benefits require such documentation.

Return to Index, Top of page

LEGISLATIVE E-REPORT - Issue No. 3 - February 1, 2007

Janis McMillen, President & Editor

BACKGROUND INFORMATION ON HEALTH CARE, ENERGY AND CHILDREN'S ISSUES

Paul Johnson

Health Care

The Kansas Health Institute (KHI), a non-profit health issues think tank in Topeka , has started a web-based health news service ( www.khi.org ) that provides “in-depth and daily coverage of urgent and emerging health issues”. KHI has four seasoned reporters on staff covering health and health-related issues, and among the in-depth stories that have been written is one on mental health coverage in Kansas . Given that over 80% of all social service funding in Kansas is connected to medical programs, Kansas lawmakers spend the majority of their time on the medical components of social services. Jim McLean, the senior staff member of this new service, will be the featured speaker at Day at the Capitol on March 8.

The General Assistance (GA) program provides cash assistance and the MediKan program provides medical care to disabled adults in Kansas . The program is solely funded by state dollars and is always subject to budget cuts. The primary purpose for the GA program today is to help these clients qualify for federal disability programs where they qualify for federal disability income and Medicaid services. The program has been serving approximately 4,500 adults statewide for the last two years. The critical problem is that only 25% of GA clients will ever qualify for the federal disability programs. The primary reason is that severely mentally ill clients often do not meet the criterion of a long-term disability that restricts a person from employment.

The Kansas Health Policy Authority (KHPA) now operates the MediKan program and has developed a new presumptive disability-screening unit that will only approve GA clients that have a high probability of qualifying for federal disability. This screening unit started last September and the number of approvals for the GA program has fallen from 300 monthly to 57. KHPA must now report to the Kansas Legislature the results of this new screening tool and how to handle mentally ill clients that do not now qualify for GA. A serious debate is just beginning on the plight of these clients.

Energy

With a $2 million appropriation from the Kansas Legislature last year, a program to provide low interest loans for energy efficient improvements to Kansas ' homes has been developed. The program is known as the Kansas Energy Efficiency Program (KEEP) and is located at the Kansas Housing Resources Corporation (KHRC) www.kshousingcorp.org . The income eligibility is up to 100% of the statewide median income which for a family of four equals $65,777. Home improvements allowed in this program include: specified ENERGY STAR furnaces, central air conditioners, heat pumps, water heaters, insulation, new door and windows and purchasing certain energy efficient appliances. The Sunflower Bank - that has 34 locations across the state - underwrites, monitors the construction phase and services these loans. KEEP funds half the loan up to $7500. Total loans could be higher as determined by Sunflower. The zero interest rate on the KEEP funds translates into a lower blended rate than a normal second mortgage loan. Complete details on KEEP can be found on the listed website.

Kansas operates a Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP) that serves households below 60% of the state's median household income. The program weatherized 1,705 homes in 2006 and with extra federal and state funds should be able to weatherize 2,000 homes in 2007. Kansas is divided into 8 areas that are served by designated agencies. There is a 1-2 year wait for these services. One-quarter of the homes served are rental units. Weatherization reduces energy use in the average home by 21%. The funding for WAP in 2006 was $4 million, up to $7.2 million in 2007 with additional federal and state funds but may be back down to $4 million in 2008. The Governor included $2 million of state funds in 2007 but has not requested that state funding for 2008. There is clearly a great demand for these weatherization services. Program information can be found on KHRC's website by clicking on the program icon.

Children

Child support income is critically important to thousands of Kansas ' children. Somewhere between one-third and one-half of all Kansas children receive or should receive child support. The Kansas Payment Center (KPC) has been established to process over 95% of all child support in Kansas .

The KPC now has a total of 244,000 orders. This is a blend of private child support cases (127,000) and SRS related cases (117,000). The KPC is now processing on average about 180,000 monthly payments. By this summer, J.P. Morgan will operate the KPC. Presently 44% of the KPC monthly payments are sent out electronically either by direct deposit or a debit card. The plan is to expand the payments electronically thus saving KPC the cost of writing checks and assisting custodial parents in developing financial institution connections.

There is very detailed information on the SRS related child support cases. SRS has 131,694 open child support cases involving 175,511 children but only 92,282 of these cases have been processed and financial orders established. The average caseload per SRS collection officer is 655 – twice a normal caseload. Total SRS child support collections in FY 2006 was $160 million with $127 million going to Kansas families. The current child support due monthly is $15.4 million but the average current support paid is only $8.5 million – a 55% collection rate. The Kansas Legislature funded a customer call center (that should be open this summer) so that parents can get timely child support information on their case thus freeing up time for SRS's child support workers to process other cases.

Staffing information shows that if the Kansas Legislature funds a new five-member child support team over three years, this team will increase collections by $1.4 million and fees from these collections will cover the state funding of this team. Another opportunity to increase staffing may be to employ public assistance parents in positions of data entry or secretarial support to existing child support staff. SRS should have child support staff of 360 statewide but must keep 40-50 of these positions open given budget limitations. Last year, the Kansas Legislature passed laws improving child support collection tools that will sanction driver's licenses and restrict hunting/fishing licenses to parents who fall behind in child support.

Legislation

Energy Conservation

SB 128 , which had a hearing in Senate Utilities on Jan. 31, will establish the energy conservation education advisory group for the purpose of developing statewide requirements, standards and guidelines for energy education and energy conservation promotion programs. This effort will be housed at the Kansas Energy Office – a division of the Kansas Corporation Commission. This advisory group will include representatives from the private electric & natural gas utilities, municipal utilities, KSU engineering extension, citizen's utility ratepayer board and certain state employees that work with energy programs. The materials and programs developed will assist customers in accessing energy audits, finding financing options for energy conservation improvements and measuring the performance of these improvements. Essentially this legislation will standardize energy conservation information and make it available uniformly statewide. This legislation was developed by the Governor's Kansas Energy Council and supported by the utilities in Kansas . SB 128 had a hearing before the Senate Utilities Committee on January 31.

HB 2169, which had a hearing in the House Utilities committee on Jan. 30, would expand the opportunities for the Kansas Development Finance Authority (KDFA) to issue more energy conservation financing bonds to more political subdivisions such as cities, counties and even the military. One reason for this bill is to assist the Department of Defense in its expansion at Fort Riley to make the new improvements as energy efficient as possible. This law will expand the amount of funds that can be used for these energy conservation bonds as long as the utility savings from these improvements can repay the bonds. The cap was $5 million in any one fiscal year. KDFA is also authorized to assist the Kansas Corporation Commission and any political subdivision, state agency or federal entity with energy conservation engineering studies. The Governor has issued an executive order requiring that energy conservation studies be done on all space rented by the State and the highest energy efficiency standards be used for new state buildings.

Elections

Numerous bills have been introduced in both the House and Senate regarding changes to advance balloting procedures, requiring paper trails for all electronic voting machines, regulations for poll agents, and considering the possibility of a Kansas Presidential Primary. SB 169 was heard in the Senate Elections and Local Government Committee this week, and League submitted testimony against the bill. This bill requires photo identification before voting an advance ballot or when voting at the polls. One piece of legislation that is about to be introduced by Sen. Marci Francisco (D-Lawrence) has its origins with a LWVK study on Election Administration. If you recall, we did a 2-year study that concluded in 2001. It involved a survey we sent to all 105 county election officers. Based upon their responses, one item that we recommended in our new position was to give county election officers the option of offering split shifts to poll-workers, but not to supervising judges. After several years of discussion with the Secretary of State, he and his staff are now supporting this idea and the Senate Elections and Local Government Committee, through the efforts of Marci, will introduce this bill. I consider this a very nice victory for the League!

Campaign Finance Reform

The 2007 Informed Voter Act was formally introduced into the House and Senate this week by a bi-partisan group of legislators. The series of bills intends to address the no-call list as it relates to “robo-calls” and other calls on behalf of candidates, more transparence on issue advertisements, more disclosure on PACs and their expenditures, and more timely reporting of large, last minute campaign contributions.

Miscellaneous

TABOR is back this year; HCR 5004 would require all new appropriations and any increases in current appropriations be approved by 60% of the members of the House and Senate. To introduced this into the Kansas Constitution would require a 2/3 vote of the people.

HCR 5006 is a “re-run” of the effort to abolish the non-partisan Supreme Court Nominating Commission, now used to nominate candidates to the Supreme Court and replace this process by giving the Governor the right to appoint a candidate, with confirmation by the Senate. The argument is that this process is used for Federal judges, so why not our SC justices. When the bill has a hearing, we will testify against changing our current merit selection process for appellate judges.

Several bills ( HB 2098, HB 2252, HB 2254 , and HB 2255 ) were introduced that all have the goal of making it illegal to conduct embryonic stem cell research, or to use frozen embryos for research.

SB 222 was introduced this week, and would abolish the death penalty effective in January 2008, but would not be retroactive to persons now on death row.

HB 2072 would provide a phase-in over several years for school districts to offer all-day Kindergarten.

Return to Index, Top of page

LEGISLATIVE E-REPORT - Issue No. 2 - january 15, 2007

Janis McMillen, President & Editor

ENERGY ISSUES

Paul Johnson

In the State of the State address, Governor Kathleen Sebelius promoted new markers for energy policy in Kansas by advocating goals for wind energy and energy conservation. The goal with wind energy is to produce 10% of the state's electricity from wind power by 2010 and 20% by 2020. Through a statewide consumer education and conservation effort, the Governor has asked energy producers to reduce consumption by 5% by 2010 and 10% by 2020. The entity coordinating this effort is the Kansas Energy Council co-chaired by Lt. Governor Mark Parkinson and Ken Frahm. Background information on Kansas ' energy data and proposals from the Kansas Energy Council can be found at the website: kec.kansas.gov.

“But there also can be no doubt that our current energy sources are causing dramatic, even dangerous changes to our climate. For a state like Kansas , where a major segment of our economy relies on predictable weather, and where our entire population relies on a stable water supply, this has real consequences.” ( Governor Kathleen Sebelius State of the State – January 10, 2007)

HB 2036 – This legislation will set new applicable thermal efficiency standards for new commercial and industrial standards in Kansas . It will also establish a new Energy Efficiency Disclosure form for new residential structures that can be requested by the buyer from the seller prior to closing.

HB 2037 – This legislation will provide income tax credits and deductions for energy efficiency expenditures to rental property. ($100 per dwelling unit for each six inches of ceiling insulation installed, $300 for a newly installed heating, ventilation or air conditioning system which replaces an existing system and meets certain criteria listed in this bill). One-third of the one million housing units in Kansas are rental.

SOCIAL SERVICES ISSUES

Paul Johnson

Consensus caseload is a process through which the Division of the Budget of the Governor's office and the Legislative Research Department meet twice a year with social service agencies that have entitlement programs to estimate expenditures for the current and upcoming fiscal year. Programs covered are the nursing home program, regular medical programs, temporary assistance to families (TAF), general assistance, foster care and adoption. The estimate for FY 2008 is a $53 million increase to $799 million from the State General Fund and a total of $2 billion from all funds. The Kansas Legislature and the Governor's office both accept these projections and without program changes must fund these increases. This expenditure is often the largest expenditure for social services thus diminishing the chances for spending in other social services.

After several years of expansion in providing child care, the Governor's recommendation for FY 2008 is to cover the same number of children – 21,131 – in 2008 as in 2007. The average cost per child does increase from $306 to $311.65 and the total budget is $79 million. To be eligible, families must work at least 30 hours per week and be at or below 185% of the federal poverty level. SRS estimates that they are serving less than 20% of the eligible families.

The Temporary Assistance Program replaced Aid to Families with Dependent Children when Welfare Reform was passed in 1996. In 2007, 41,942 persons are covered while in FY 2008 the number will drop to 41,254. Many of the families who leave TAF have significant barriers to employment so the Governor is proposing to continue to provide cash assistance to families becoming employed for an additional three months. While this will raise the program cost from $60 million to $64.4 million, this enhancement will increase the Kansas ' federally mandated work participation rate and reduce possible federal penalties.

The Governor's FY 2008 budget includes additional funding for the Grandparents-as-Caregivers Program. The total funding will be $4 million and provide $200 per child monthly to grandparent caregivers who are 50 years or older and who have income up to 100% of the federal poverty level.

The Governor's Budget Priorities (adapted from the Lawrence Journal World )

• Move toward toward all-day kindergarten statewide (worth $15 million), by moving from 0.5 to 0.6 state aid funding per kindergartener, and eventually to full time funding per pupil over 5 years.
• $40 million for higher ed, of which $30 million goes to Regents' schools. Washburn, community colleges and technical schools get 4% increases, and $3 million is set aside for new student financial aid programs.
• $4 million (state, to which the federal government adds about $6 million) for birth-to-age-5 health care coverage for poor children. The House killed that proposal last year.
• Nearly $40 million for elderly and disabled Kansans, plus $1.5 million for a new program of care for autistic children.
• Rural development and other economic development programs worth about $6 million.
• Free State Park admissions (worth about $1.6 million next year, or $3.2 million on an annual basis).
• Tax reductions total about $13 million in lost revenue. Increasing the minimum corporate wealth for the franchise tax from the current $100,000 to $1 million cuts about 16,000 businesses out of that liability and costs about $7 million in lost revenues from the roughly $40 million a year tax.
• On corporate income taxes, Sebelius proposes dropping the surtax rate (the basic rate is 4% of the first $50,000 in income). The surtax paid on income above $50,000 would drop from 3.35% to 2.95% next year and to 2.75% in the following year. That's worth about $5.8 million in this budget year, and $22.2 million in reduced revenues the next year.
• Add about $750,000 for life insurance for Kansas Guard members who are killed in foreign wars.
• Add $7 million for correctional facilities and programs, $750,000 for cameras for HyPo cars.
• Continue spending about $7 million for biofuels production, and spend $1 million for planning for electric transmission lines to carry wind-generated electricity to market.
• Shift about $2.5 million in State Water Plan overhead to the general fund, freeing up that amount for more water projects.
• Pick up the $60 million additional costs estimated this year for Medicaid and services to the elderly.
• An estimated $175 million of sales tax revenue to be moved to the Kansas Department of Transportation to finance the comprehensive transportation program.
• Pay $22 million for classified state employee raises of 1.5% plus the 2.5% step raises for employees. Increase from $40 to $50 per year the annual stipend for longevity for state employees who have 10 or more years of service.

Return to Index, Top of page

LEGISLATIVE E-REPORT - Issue No. 1 - january 15, 2007

Janis McMillen, President & Editor

Welcome to the first 2007 legislative E-report. In addition to legislation that I and other League members will be following, this year we have hired Paul Johnson to assist our efforts. Paul is a long-time advocate for issues that affect people in poverty, and he will be sharing his knowledge and insights with us on a variety of topics that are important to all of us as League members and as caring citizens.

This first report will provide links to the leadership and committee chairs in the  Kansas House House and Senate , and the US Congress ; note that some of the  Kansas House committees were abandoned and/or coalesced into one committee, i.e., Education (it will cover both K-12 and Higher Education). There are minor changes in the Senate committee chairs and vice-chairs

We are still looking for some of you to assist with our efforts to make our voices heard this year. If you are willing to follow a particular topic, please let me know. We need your help!!

KANSAS LEGISLATURE www.kslegislature.org ; click on either House or Senate; this will bring up the Roster for the respective chamber.

SENATE

• Leadership: President , Steve Morris; Vice President, John Vratil; Majority Leader, Derek Schmidt; Minority Leader, Anthony Hensley
• Agriculture: Chair, Mark Taddiken; Vice Chair, Roger Pine; Ranking Minority : marci francisco
• Assessment and Taxation: Chair , Barbara Allen; Vice Chair, Derek Schmidt and Les Donovan; Ranking Minority : Janis Lee
• Commerce: Co-Chairs, Karin Brownlee and Nick Jordan; Ranking Minority : Laura Kelly
• Education: Chair, Jean Schodorf; Vice Chair, John Vratil; Ranking Minority , Janis Lee
• Elections and Local Government: Chair, Tim Huelskamp; Vice Chair , Roger Reitz; Ranking Minority , Donald Betts
• Federal and State Affairs: Chair , Pete Brungardt; Vice Chair, Roger Reitz; Ranking Minority , Mark Gilstrap
• Financial Institutions and Insurance Chair : Ruth Teichman; Vice Chair, David Wysong; Ranking Minority , Chris Steineger
• Health Care Strategies: Chair : Susan Wagle; Vice Chair, Pete Brungardt; Ranking Minority , D. Haley
• Judiciary: Chair,  John Vratil; Vice Chair , Terry Bruce; Ranking Minority , Greta Goodwin
• Natural Resources: Chair Carolyn McGinn; Vice Chair, Ralph Ostmeyer; Ranking Minority , marci francisco
• Public Health: Chair Jim Barnett; Vice Chair, Vicki Schmidt; Ranking Minority , David Haley
• Transportation: Chair Les Donovan; Vice Chair, Dennis Wilson; Ranking Minority , Mark Gilstrap
• Utilities: Chair Jay Emler; Vice Chair , Pat Apple; Ranking Minority, Janis Lee
• Ways and Means:  Chair Dwayne Umbarger; Vice Chair, Jay Emler; Ranking Minority : Laura Kelly

HOUSE

• Leadership : Speaker , Melvin Neufeld; Majority Leader Ray Merrick; Speaker pro tem Don Dahl; Minority Leader Dennis McKinney .
• Appropriations: Chair Sharon Schwartz, Vice-chair Lee Tafanelli, Ranking Minority Bill Feuerborn
• Agriculture and Natural Resources: Chair John Faber, Vice-chair Forrest Knox, Ranking Minority Josh Svaty.
• Commerce and Labor: Chair: Steve Brunk, Vice-chair Mike Kiegerl, Ranking Minority Louis Ruiz
• Economic Development/Tourism: Chair Lana Gordon, Vice-chair Terrie Huntington, Ranking Minority Valdenia Winn
• Education: Chair Clay Aurand, Vice-chair Deena Horst, Ranking Minority Sue Storm
• Energy and Utilities: Chair Carl Holmes, Vice-chair Rob Olson, Ranking Minority Annie Kuether
• Elections and Governmental Organization: Chair Mike Burgess, Vice-chair Ted Powers, Ranking Minority Tom Sawyer
• Federal and State Affairs: Chair Arlen Siegfreid, Vice-chair Steve Huebert, Ranking Minority Mike Peterson
• Government Efficiency and Technology: Chair Jim Morrison, Vice-chair Stephanie Sharp, Ranking Minority Judy Loganbill
• Health and Human Services: Chair Brenda Landwehr, Vice-chair Peggy Mast, Ranking Minority Geraldine Flaharty
• Insurance and Financial Institutions: Chair Clark Shultz, Vice-chair Anthony Brown, Ranking Minority Nile Dillmore
• Judiciary: Chair Mike O'Neal, Vice-chair Lance Kinzer, Ranking Minority Jan Pauls
• Tax: Chair Kenny Wilk, Vice-chair Richard Carlson, Ranking Minority Tom Holland
• Transportation: Chair Gary Hayzlett, Vice-chair Virgil Peck, Ranking Minority Margaret Long
• Veterans, Military and Homeland Security : Chair Don Myers, Vice-chair Mario Goico, Ranking Minority Candy Ruff
• U.S. CONGRESS www.congress.org ; click on U.S. Congress and enter the name of the congress person
  • Sen. Pat Roberts (Ph) 202-224-4774; (Fax) 202-224-3514
  • Sen. Sam Brownback (Ph) 202-224-6521; (Fax) 202-228-1265
  • Congressman Jerry Moran (Ph) 202-225-2715; (Fax) 202-225-5124
  • Congressman Nancy Boyda (Ph) 202-225-6601; (Fax) 202-225-7986
  • Congressman Dennis Moore (Ph) 202-225-2865; (Fax) 202-225-2807
  • Congressman Todd Tiahrt (Ph) 202-225-6216; (Fax) 202-225-3489

Return to Index, Top of page