Jan's Journal: 2020 Legislative Session

Poll
Throughout the legislative session, I will be conducting informal polls on the hot topics of the session via this email list. Please share with your neighbors who live in the district (see the map above) so they may participate. The more people who respond means the results are more representative of the whole.

Sports Betting in Kansas
I am writing this newsletter from San Diego where I am participating in my fourth conference for the National Council of Legislators from Gaming States. I am researching the best practices as well as those not to follow as we put together a sports gaming bill for Kansas. I am optimistic that we will get a bill through this session. In addition to the opportunity to legally wager on games for those so inclined and the state revenue generated from wagers, business will increase in sports bar and other locations, which will mean more jobs and more sales tax on food and beverage sales.

69 tolling
No doubt you have heard that expansion of highway 69 in Johnson County has the opportunity to be funded via tolling, rather than waiting for KDOT funding approval. Someone asked if we had lost our mind, to put a toll booth in the middle of the highway. It doesn’t work that way.

The plan is to add a third lane in each direction and have it restricted as a toll lane only. The other two lanes would be “free”. The toll would be collected via high speed electronics and a transmitter in each car, much like the K-Tag on the Turnpike. Tolls would be dynamic – higher during rush hour and even no charge during slow times.

The additional lane will alleviate traffic pressure on 69 south of 435. I’ll keep you updated as KDOT continues to work with the county and our cities on future improvements.

I’ll add here that if you drive on I-35 near 75th street, you will face even greater traffic tie-ups from March this year through next spring as the interchange is enlarged to unclog that bottleneck. It will be a mess for a while, then so very much better when the project is complete.

Economists and budget experts expect the state to end this fiscal year with $900 million more in the bank than what was budgeted. That’s the good news. The bad news is we are still digging out of the fiscal hole we found ourselves in after the Brownback tax policy put the state into generational debt.

The positive balance this year means is we can continue to restore basic functions of government - like reforming the shameful foster care system, reduce waiting lists for elderly and disabled care, recruit additional staff to improve the speed of tax returns and work on closing the “bank of KDOT” that takes transportation dollars for other things. We also must continue to fully fund KPERs and education. I don’t expect additional taxes, but I would expect consideration of lowering food sales tax.

Budget projections with current revenue and spending predict we will be out of money after 2025. We must take a hard look at spending as well as revenue.

Schools
Last session, we created a school funding formula that the Kansas Supreme Court accepted as meeting constitutional requirements. The formula calls for funding increases in coming years to account for inflation. That drives expenses for coming years, which puts pressure on funding for other services.

To continue constitutional funding, two key provisions must be renewed. At-risk and high-enrollment weighting are holdover policies from the previous formula and incorporated into this one, and are scheduled to expire on July 1, 2020. At-risk weighting provides extra funding for students requiring more services. High-enrollment weighting is just that – additional funding due to the increased expense of larger facilities and programming.

Medicaid Expansion
Governor Kelly and State Senator Jim Denning have announced a compromise, bi-partisan Medicaid Expansion bill to be considered very soon. I have long-worked toward Medicaid Expansion to deliver healthcare for poor and vulnerable in Kansas. Kansas is one of just 14 states which have not expanded access to families with children making less than $30,000 for a family of 4. Yet we continue to pay taxes into the system (Almost $4 billion to the federal government and NO return since expansion was offered). Those tax dollars have gone to other states and we see nothing. Your tax dollars are paying for expansion in other states. I don’t mind sharing, but not when we have more than 150,000 Kansas families who would qualify for this help. Look for a vote early in the session.

Social Issues
As in every election year, social issues like abortion and changing the definition of “marriage” are sure to get some airtime – if committee chairs are able to avoid hearings on the worst offenders, those bills will likely come to the floor as amendments for “gotcha” votes where special interests identify who is with them or not.

Judicial Funding
Some in the judicial branch are suing the legislative branch for salary increases it has not received. Kansas state employees have paid a price for previous bad fiscal policy by going years without a raise. Even with raises the past two years, Kansas judicial employees are still in the lowest 5% in the nation in employee pay. Food pantries are in place in some courthouses for judicial employees. It is hard to recruit new employees and creates workload issues as well as a challenge to deliver a “speedy trial”.

Higher Education Funding
Tuition for state colleges and universities have soared as state funding was cut since the aforementioned bad fiscal policy heyday. The past two years, we have added some funding that puts the school budgets close to where they were in 2012. However, those schools are still eight years behind fund increases, while other states are competitively recruiting Kansas students.

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