Tuesday, March 20, 2012
By Angelique McNaughton
The Fort Scott Area Chamber of Commerce hosted a legislative update featuring Kansas Sen. Bob Marshall and Rep. Caryn Tyson in the Heritage Room at Fort Scott Community College on Saturday.The two legislators spent about an hour and a half addressing the audience of about 15 school officials and community members. The pair answered questions regarding the main issues and bills that both houses are tackling in the legislature.
“We’ve got a lot of people who are looking at bills and not just sending them in,” said Tyson, a Republican from Parker. “They (the House) didn’t get 100 percent of what they were trying to get done, but the bills will come to pass.”
Some of the top issues legislators are working on right now deal with the state budget, funding for kindergarten through 12th grade education, state and congressional redistricting maps and adjustments to the Kansas Public Employees Retirement System.
The House approved a proposed $14.1 billion state budget on Monday, which trims spending by $600 million, or 4 percent. This is similar to the budget proposed by Gov. Sam Brownback. Lawmakers also added $28 million to refund money lost by public schools.
“I don’t know what will happen on the Senate side, but the House did put that in,” Tyson said Saturday.
The $28 million will come from Kansas Department of Transportation administration overhead, she said.
Lawmakers made the vote based on the assurance that KDOT “would be fine” and T-Works projects would not be affected, Tyson said.
“It was an interesting, tough vote. It did make an interesting time,” Tyson said. “Within two minutes you had to decide — K-12 or KDOT. You need to know where you’re at, where you stand, where your values are and who you represent because those votes come fast and furious.”
USD 234 school board President Janet Braun, in attendance Saturday, said if the House proposal keeps school funding the same as last year, which is what it looked like to her, “it certainly would be better than lowering the budget.”
Braun said USD 234 board members have had to deal with budget cuts of more than $1 million the past few years.
“I would be happy if they raised it,” Braun said Monday. “It’s not perfect now, but it’s better than making cuts.”
The spending bill now heads to the Senate, which is working out details of its own regarding budget and education funding.
Marshall, R-Fort Scott, said the Senate worked about 45 bills on Wednesday and Thursday alone.
“We’ve gone through about 120 bills all together,” Marshall said.
He said the Senate is attempting to work on school funding using the governor’s “formula.”
“His formula is not supposed to change any funding, but there are so many things wrong with it we are making amendments upon amendments to change what’s within the governor’s formula,” Marshall said. “It’s like we know there are problems with the formula, but you’ve got to really sit down and know what you’re talking about to put it together and we had the wrong people putting it together.”
Marshall said senators were working on a proposal that included adjusting the local option budget and base state aid per pupil to provide more equalized funding. The local option budget allows districts to raise money locally to enhance their educational programs, according to references.
“You’re supposed to equalize to 100 percent,” Marshall said. “Poor districts need equalization; it gets more money for the small districts.”
Marshall said senators voted to raise the local option budget from its current 31 percent to 32 percent for fiscal year 2013, and again to 33 percent for fiscal year 2014, at which time a local election will be required to approve the increases.
Lawmakers also approved an amendment that would add $37 each year to the equalization and base student aid per pupil funding.
The two legislators touched on another sensitive subject Saturday — KPERS.
The retirement fund for the state’s public employees is reportedly underfunded by $8.4 billion as of March 12.
Tyson said she favors providing more options for state employees, even allowing them to “opt out of the program.”
The House addressed KPERS on Monday, but Tyson did not immediately return a phone call about what the House decided.
Marshall said senators are in the process of developing a bill that will come out next week.
“What we owe and what we have coming, we’re $8.4 billion short for whatever obligations the state has to pay,” he said. “We’re bleeding and we need to stop that and that’s what we’re trying to do. The state has got to get more money coming than what we’ve had coming in in the past.”
Before opening the informal session to questions, Marshall and Tyson addressed the state’s impending redistricting, a product of the 2010 Census that “has to be done.”
Marshall said as a result of the proposals for redistricting, Southeast Kansas is probably going to lose a representative, but not necessarily a senator.
“This is going to be a big issue and it is going to be fought,” Marshall said.
Tyson said the House redistricting committee also dealt with some “heartburn” regarding the U.S. Congressional redistricting map.
“That was a really ugly thing that came out of the House,” Tyson said. “You think it would be easy, but there were over 20 some variations on this map and it caused major heartburn and most of them were not well for us.”
Angelique McNaughton 