Voice For Liberty

Category: Kansas state government

  • Taxed Out of Business

    From the Junction City Daily Union, March 24, 2005

    By Kay Blanken
    Special to The Daily Union

    Friday evening, many of us in Junction City opened our newspaper to the headline, “Local Alco Closing Its Doors.” The Kansas City Star reported that 20 Alco stores across Kansas were closing their doors. This is a Kansas corporation that began in Abilene.

    I, as a business person, am not surprised. Not just Alco is closing its doors; Kansas has lost many stores and companies in the past four years. Is it bad business practices? I don’t think so. Many of the companies and businesses have been successful for many years. What then is happening? Starting three years ago, the state began raising the fees to Kansas businesses and companies trying to make up for the budget shortfall that our Legislature created by overspending. This overspending came from both Republicans and Democrats. Because the Kansas Constitution forbids ending a year without a balanced budget, legislators had to find a way.

    To balance the budget, the Legislature hit many businesses with fees that do not pertain to their type of business. You paid the fees or you risked forfeiting your business. Many of us have our life’s blood in these businesses. We paid the fees.

    This year we again received a new shock. Businesses pay a franchise fee for the privilege of doing business in Kansas. On Feb. 7, Kansas businesses received notice that the franchise tax would max out at $5,008. This is based on the gross your business does before you pay any expenses. Two weeks later we received notice the maximum would be $20,000 — plus a $55 fee for the secretary of state. Here is the letter we received:

    Dear Business Customer:

    Last spring the Kansas Legislature passed SB 147, which requires businesses to pay a franchise tax (we have always paid a franchise tax) to the Kansas Department of Revenue and a separate franchise fee to the Secretary of State. Both are due the 15th day of the fourth month following the tax year end — e.g. April 15, 2005, for entities with a December 31, 2004, tax year end.

    KANSAS DEPARTMENT OF REVENUE — franchise tax (maximum $20,000.00)

    Business entities that have $100,000.00 net worth or more must pay to the Kansas Department of Revenue a franchise tax of 0.125% of the total net worth. Business entities required to pay the tax will file a return with the Department of Revenue, which must be accompanied by taxpayer’s balance sheet. (I can’t find anyone who does not have to pay.)

    Do not send your franchise fee and annual report to the Department of Revenue. Your business will forfeit if the correct annual report and franchise fee are not received by the Secretary of State on or before your forfeiture.

    The letter goes on to tell us how to file and report. What it does not say is how we are to get the money to pay the franchise fee. Many of us in business are just now coming out of a very long downturn. Many have had to borrow money to keep their doors open, and then many have not made it.

    Now many of you reading this will say, “This don’t affect me.” Sorry, but it does. Do you work for a business or company? If you do, you may not have a job for much longer. Or you may find yourself moving to a state that cares about the business and economic climate. Some of you may be saying, “This is only one tax. What’s the beef?” Wrong.

    Businesses pay corporate income tax, which is 4 percent of net income. In addition, net income in excess of $50,000 is subject to a 3.35 percent surtax. The tax law goes on to say “Kansas corporate income tax is calculated using the apportioned net income and the corporate income tax rate of 4 percent for the first $50,000 and 7.35 percent for excess above $50,000.” Then businesses face insurance tax, 2 percent; intangible property tax, counties can tax up to 2.25 percent on intangible property; personal property tax; inventory tax; state sales tax 5.3 percent; city 1 percent; county 1 percent (at this time); unemployment insurance tax from 0.08 percent to 7.4 percent depending on our rating (our rating is based on the willingness of an employee performing his/her job); worker’s compensation insurance (premiums are calculated per $100 of annual employees wages; wonder why that pay raise didn’t come through?), property tax, 25 percent; Social Security tax, 7.65 percent — and I could go on with other licenses/permits and fees, both local and state. So why did Alco call it quits?

    There are a lot of reasons why businesses cannot make it in today’s climate. Buying power is one. A small business pays more for goods than a large conglomerate. But we all pay the same type of taxes and have the same routine costs.

    With Alco closing, Junction City, Geary County and USD 475 will still receive property taxes, but they will not receive the sales tax revenue Alco generated. And our community will no longer receive Alco’s charitable donations, leaving a lot of good projects to suffer.

    At a town hall meeting on Saturday, a candidate for the local school board asked about school finance. The response from state Rep. Barbara Craft was, “We know we need more funding for schools, and maybe we will have to go to the businesses. Oh, maybe I had better rephrase that.”

    The state’s mission statement is, “Our state is constitutionally restrained from overspending, providing a foundation of fiscal integrity for our business climate.” So what happened to throw the state so far off of its budget? Why are so many businesses closing or going out of state to do business? The last count I had was more than 1,300 businesses over three years, and I have no idea of how many jobs were lost. Why are cities raising the fees for services?

    What affects business also affects you. It’s time we all became concerned and start asking our elected representatives the “why” questions.

    Kay Blanken is a Junction City commissioner and co-owner of B&K Enterprises.

  • Clunker law epealed, surliness not

    I received this message from someone who applied for the refund of overpaid sales tax that many in Kansas paid as part of the “clunker law.” That law attempted to prevent cheating on sales tax by those who self-reported the price they paid for a car. Some people lied and paid less sales tax than they should have. The state started assessing sales taxes based on an assessment system that sometimes overvalued a car. This year the legislature passed a law allowing those who overpaid to seek refunds. A good idea — but sometimes, as this story illustrates, a bit difficult to take advantage of.

    Last July I purchased a automobile from a gentleman in Missouri. It was an old clunker that needed much repair as a school car for my daughter for $500. The car had several mechanical problems, had been wrecked and had hail damage. It was worth $500, no more, no less. Even though it had 210,000+ miles, I thought we could have some fun fixing it up. When I went to get a tag for it, they county office informed me that I would have to pay sales tax on $3,400! After much unsatisfactory explanation from the clerk, her supervisor stated “If I wanted a tag, I would have to pay the money”. Sounds like extortion to me. I, then, had to pay sales taxes on the repairs also.

    Our great legislature has since decided that they over stepped their authority and a rebate is in order. I went out to the Kansas State Government website to read the process of getting my money back. They stated that I need a copy of the receipt that the county gave me when I overpaid the taxes along with one of the following list:

    Copy of the bill of sale.
    Copy of the cancelled check used to purchase the car.
    Copies of both the front and back of the title.

    Sounds easy enough. I went to the county courthouse and stood in line for over an hour, finally having the clerk tell me “we don’t keep any records of the taxes you paid and cannot help you with a copy of the receipt”. She did inform me that the title I needed copies of, was the title from the ORIGINAL owner, which they took from me when I overpaid the taxes, and sent to the State of Kansas.

    When I returned home, I spent a couple of hours digging through all my records and finally found the original receipt for sales taxes overpaid. Since I paid cash (the gentleman from Missouri would not accept a personal check, go figure) and in Missouri, the title IS the bill of sale, I came to the realization, that the State had me in a catch 22. I found a phone number on the trusty web site, and gave the department of vehicle taxes a ring. They acknowledged the problem, but gave me a solution. I could write to the Kansas Department of Motor Vehicle Records (downstairs from them) and request a form from them to request that they send a copy of my original title to me. I could then send the copy of the title back to the Vehicle tax department along with the copy of the county tax receipt to get my money back!?????

    I thought about it for a while and decided to give the Vehicle Tax department another call, just to get it straight. I was up to the second level of supervisor and asked him if he really wanted me to—–

    Send a request for vehicle registration and history to the Motor Vehicle Records Department (downstairs from him).
    They would send me a form.
    I would fill out the form (did I mention the $15 fee) and send it back to the Motor Vehicle Records Department (downstairs).
    They would send me a copy of the original title from the gentleman from Missouri.
    I would send it to the Vehicle tax department along with the copy of the tax overpayment receipt (back upstairs).

    I asked him if the process sounded as ridiculous to him as it did to me. I also asked that if I just sent a copy of my title, maybe he could walk downstairs to the title office and cross check it with the original. He said “I will have to get back to you on that one” an after about a week, I actually receive a call from him on my machine! He indicated that I would indeed have to request the title history from the office downstairs and pay the $15.

  • Senator Ruth Teichman, Republican in Name Only?

    This is an interesting analysis that I received from Karl Peterjohn, Executive Director Kansas Taxpayers Network. What Karl doesn’t mention is that Senator Teichman is a Republican.

    Bob,

    This response is so interesting and the timing is so remarkable that I want to submit it for Wichita Liberty. Sen. Teichman responds to my mid-February email that I sent her opposing SB 58. Shortly thereafter, she voted to APPROVE SB 58 on the floor of the Kansas senate. March 22, 2005 the Kansas house votes for SB 58 in an unamended form so it will go directly to the governor for her signature.

    Today, March 24, I received her response to my February 15 e-mail! The timing of this response provides a fascinating insight into the Kansas legislature in general and Senator Teichman in particular. You might also find it interesting to know that Sen. Teichman’s lifetime KTN fiscal vote rating is only 9.7%, and is now the lowest of the currently serving Kansas senators. Sen. Buhler’s was 3.9% but he was beat last November. Her fiscal vote rating is going to continue to be low as Senator Teichman continues to mistreat taxpayers.

    Karl Peterjohn

    Ruth Teichman wrote:
    Date: Thu, 24 Mar 2005 13:25:50 -0600
    From: “Ruth Teichman”
    To:
    Subject: Re: SB 58 Arena tax bill

    Thank you for your comments. I appreciate your concerns.
    Senator Ruth Teichman

    >>> kpeterjohn 02/15/05 12:58 >>>

    Senators:

    A quick reminder of six reasons why the Kansas Taxpayers Network testified in opposition to SB 58 in senate tax committee earlier this month.

    1) SB 58 makes a bad law, KSA 12-187 worse.

    2) SB 58 adds a retroactive provision to KSA 12-187. KTN is adamant in opposing retroactive provisions to state tax law.

    3) SB 58 treats Kansas citizens as second-class to local units who can ignore state law with impugnity if this law is passed.

    4) One of the reasons that this vote won by a very small margin (52-to-48)city, county, and state tax funded organizations donated over $45,000 for the “Vote Yea” campaign conducted by the arena tax hike proponents. This misuse of tax funds outspent the “Vote No” campaign by better than 2-to-1. This was a gross misuse of tax funds including turnpike and regents spending.

    5) The arena will be a money losing failure if it is built using the current plan. The plan itself projects annual losses in the range of $800,000 a year. I frankly believe the losses will be larger than projected. This would be added to a large number of governmentally financed projects that are losing money in downtown Wichita.

    6) This bill should be amended to extend the requirement in KSA 12-187 requiring voter approval of local sales taxes to be extended to cover local property taxes too.

    We have had some folks ask about SB 58 appearing on Kansas Taxpayers Network’s 2005 vote rating. This will be a vote that is included for the reasons cited above.

  • A better way to pick judges

    Contributed by John Todd and William T. Davitt. I fully agree.

    A recent editorial in The Wichita Eagle discussed how trial court judges in Kansas are selected by either election or appointment. We favor neither method.

    Election of judges invites corruption because attorneys and other special-interest groups contribute money to judges’ election campaigns. It is doubtful whether one voter in 10 could even name two of the 25 judges currently on the court. And if they could name two judges, would they have any idea regarding their job performance? Thus it appears that voters do not make an “informed choice” in the voting booth, and instead select judges based on name recognition, party affiliation or yard-sign count.

    Appointment of judges invites corruption because attorneys and other special interests maneuver their members onto the selection committee that sends the names to the governor, and then they go behind the scenes and tell the governor which one they really want.

    We favor a third way of selecting judges as advocated by Gerry Spence in his book “From Freedom to Slavery.” Mr. Spence favors having our judges drafted from a pool of trial lawyers who would serve on the bench for a “limited calendar of cases” before being returned to their private practices. Every trial lawyer would be required to support the system in the same manner, as citizens are now required to serve as jurors.

    Court dockets would soon clear out, because enough judges could be drafted as were needed to clear the dockets. Mr. Spence states: “If judges were drafted, we would no longer be saddled for life with the political cronies of those in power, or be faced with judges who have received campaign contributions from our opponents. To be sure, we would experience some bad judges. But, Lord knows, we have them now — and often for life! On the other hand, we would benefit from the best minds in the legal business, who under our present system rarely seek the judiciary.”

    Democracy requires full faith that justice will be administered with absolute impartiality. That faith is certainly challenged if we enter a courtroom knowing that our opponent has contributed substantial money to our trial judge’s last election campaign or that the judge was endorsed for appointment by a group or corporation that opposes our position in court. The current methods of electing or appointing judges offer little comfort in view of their corrosive effect on public confidence in the court system.

    John R. Todd is a Wichita real estate broker. William T. Davitt is a Wichita lawyer.

  • HCR 5009: An attempt to drive down property taxes

    From Representative Frank Miller

    The Kansas Legislative Research Department provided information substantiating that property taxes increased by 126 percent since 1993, yet the inflation rate adjusted for population growth increased only 43 percent! I don’t see how the appraised value of residential property could have risen 2.75 times faster than inflation adjusted for population growth! I would suggest that appraisers are encouraged to over-appraise property in order to satisfy the need for increased property taxes without increasing the mill levy. I authored this bill in the hopes of restraining appraisers from adjusting the value of your property to a value that is higher than market value. Is not the selling price of your home the only true value for “MARKET VALUE”?

    The key wording in the resolution would change the Constitution as follows: “The legislature shall provide that the appraised valuation of real property used for residential purposes which has been sold shall be adjusted to an amount equal to the average of the appraised valuation of such real property when sold determined pursuant to law and the sales price of such real property when sold.”

    The clearest way to explain what this resolution would do is to offer an example. Assume that the latest appraised value of your home is $50,000, but during the year you put your home up for sale. Let’s further assume that your asking price was $55,000, but after much time the best price you could get was only $40,000. The county appraiser would be required by this change in the constitution to reduce the appraised value to half the difference or to $45,000. Is not the closest value to true market value the price a house is sold for on the market? This change reduces, or in like manner increases, the appraised value of residential property in a fair manner and in a manner that mirrors much closer the true market value of property.

    There is nothing in the bill prohibiting appraisers from adjusting the appraised value of your home the following year. However, property owners will have a much stronger argument if the new appraised value represents an unreasonable increase, and this is at the heart of this resolution. The resolution will check the tendency to over evaluate the appraised value of residential property.

    What kind of sales does this apply to? This bill would apply to arm’s-length sales. You could not sell your house to a relative (i.e. son, wife, etc) in order to manipulate artificially the appraised value of your property. I think this bill would be very beneficial to Kansans in trying to keep the escalation of property taxes in check. Unfortunately, the resolution at this moment is stuck in the House Taxation Committee and likely will not get out of committee this year. I will be pushing this resolution again next year. Let me know what you think.

    To contact Rep. Frank Miller write, telephone, or email to P.O. Box 665, Independence, KS, 67301, Tel: (Home) 620-331-0281; Topeka office 785-296-7646, Email frank@frankmiller.org or miller@house.state.ks.us. Take a look at Frank’s updated webpage www.frankmiller.org.

  • Americans for Prosperity Day in Topeka, March 14, 2005

    I had the pleasure of driving John Todd, Benny Boman, and Bill Davitt to Topeka for the Americans for Prosperity Day in Topeka on Monday March 14, 2005.

    We started the day at the AFP office, and then drove to the Kansas Statehouse. I met with several legislators including Representatives Bonnie Huy of Wichita, Ted Powers of Mulvane, and Kenny Wilk of Lansing. I attended the Republican House caucus, and observed the House from the gallery.

    We had a luncheon where I had the pleasure of speaking at length with Representative Bill McCreary of Wellington, from whom I learned much about how the Kansas House works.

    After lunch we met in the House gallery where Speaker of the House Doug Mays, Majority Leader Clay Aurand, and Representative Brenda Landwehr of Wichita spoke to us. There was a press conference about AFP’s activities. I was then able to meet Senator Peggy Palmer of Augusta, who impressed me as a liberty-protecting legislator.

    There was a reception at the end of the day, where I had the pleasure of speaking at length with Senator Kay O’Connor of Olathe. She is an advocate of school choice and vouchers. I learned a great deal from her.

    We returned to Wichita at about 9:30 pm. Having left Wichita at 6:00 am, it was a long and tiring day. But I learned much about how our state government works.

    A slide show of some photos I took is here: http://wichitaliberty.org/files/afp_day_in_topeka_2005-03-14/index.html

  • Testimony in Opposition to Senate Bill 58

    From John Todd.

    Members
    House Taxation Committee
    State Capitol
    Topeka, Kansas 66612

    Subject:
    Testimony in OPPOSITION TO SENATE BILL #58 (Sales Tax Increase For The Proposed Downtown Wichita Arena).

    My name is John Todd. I am a self-employed real estate broker from Wichita, and I come before you in opposition to the enabling legislation that would allow Sedgwick County to raise the local sales tax 1% to fund a new Downtown Arena in violation of current state law.

    Under current state law, Counties in Kansas are not authorized to raise county sales taxes for projects like the proposed Downtown Wichita Arena without first obtaining the required legislative approval prior to any vote of the public. A public vote advertised as non-binding was held in Sedgwick County on November 2, 2004 without the legislative approval as required by law, and now Sedgwick County officials are asking you to approve this illegal vote retroactively to the November General Election.

    Before you consider the favorable passage of Senate Bill #58 into law that would make an illegal vote legal, ex post facto, after the fact, and retroactively, you really ought to consider what was the original legislative intent of the current state law in the first place, and whether it is good precedence to allow counties to decide which laws to obey and which to ignore. Does anyone suppose that the intent of the current law was a desire on the part of prior legislators to exercise some modest control over a counties ability to “approve” massive sales tax hikes on it’s citizens, particularly for non-essential entertainment venues like arenas? Do you, as legislators not have a fiduciary responsibility to your constituents and the people of Kansas by demanding that local governmental units follow the rule of law in the same manner as you expect citizens to follow the law? If the current statute is flawed, perhaps you should be working to correct those flaws before you allow Sedgwick County to break the law?

    The solution to this problem is for you to reject Senate Bill #58 or at a bare minimum, I would suggest that you amend the Bill by approving the 1% sales tax subject to new vote of the people, as current state law requires. Local governmental units should not be allowed to selectively ignore the state law(s) they chooses not to follow by essentially placing themselves above the law. This sets bad legislative precedence, and you should not allow it to happen.

    Sincerely,

    John R. Todd

  • Testimony regarding House Bill No. 2132

    Written testimony of Bob Weeks regarding House Bill No. 2132. A pdf version is available here: http://wichitaliberty.org/files/House_Bill_2132_Testimony_by_Bob_Weeks_2005-03-10.pdf

    March 10, 2005

    Thank you for allowing me to present this written testimony. I realize that the voters in Sedgwick County voted for the arena sales tax increase. I believe, however, there is ample reason why you should vote against the tax. The idea of the taxpayer-funded arena came about so fast in the summer of 2004 that there was little thought given to the underlying issues. I wish to present what my research has uncovered.

    WSU Study Not Complete

    On of the main arguments advanced for having all the residents of Sedgwick County pay to build the arena was a study prepared by the Center for Economic Development and Business Research at Wichita State University. The study claimed a large economic benefit from the arena. It is because of this economic benefit that arena supporters say the entire community should pay to build the arena. This study, however, is incomplete in two important areas: its lack of depreciation accounting, and it ignores the substitution effect.

    No Depreciation Accounting

    Government Accounting Standards Board Statement 34 requires governments to account for the cost of their assets, usually by stating depreciation expense each year. Through a series of email exchanges with Mr. Ed Wolverton, President of the Wichita Downtown Development Corporation, I have learned that the WSU Center for Economic Development and Business Research was not aware of this requirement when they prepared their study. Mr. Wolverton admitted this after checking with the study authors. Furthermore, Mr. Chris Chronis, Chief Financial Officer of Sedgwick County, in an email conversation told me that the county will take depreciation expense for the downtown arena. I do not know what a figure for depreciation expense would be, but it would likely be several million dollars per year, and it would materially and substantially change the arena’s financial footing.

    No Substitution Effect Allowed For

    In a television new story reported by Mr. Erik Runge of KWCH Television on October 25, 2004, I was interviewed, and I mentioned the substitution effect. This is the term used to describe what research has found: that much of the new economic activity such as bars and restaurants that might appear around a downtown arena would be bars and restaurants that have moved from other parts of the city. There is little or no new economic activity, just movement of existing activity. Mr. Runge interviewed Mr. Ed Wolverton, President of the Wichita Downtown Development Corporation, who said “In WSU’s report they felt like there definitely could be some substitution effect.” The reporter explained “But how much was never studied. Downtown development backer Ed Wolverton says mostly due to time restraints.”

    These two glaring omissions of materially important facts by the WSU study should lead us to question its other findings. Other than the report on KWCH, I saw no reporting of these two matters.

    Claimed Economic Benefit is Not Realized

    Arena supporters say that everyone should pay to build and operate the arena because it will generate economic impact that everyone will benefit from. The economic benefit claimed by arena supporters, however, has not been found to materialize in other cities. In the March 2001 issue of “FedGazette,” published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, an article titled “Stadiums and convention centers as community loss leaders” contains this quote:

    “Current research indicates that stadiums and arenas have a particularly bad track record when it comes to delivering on promises of community economic windfalls. University researchers Mark Rosentraub and Mark Swindell found that three decades worth of studies ‘lead to the inescapable conclusion that the direct and indirect economic impacts of sports teams and the facilities are quite small’ and do not create much in the way of new jobs or economic development.”

    In a paper titled “Professional Sports Facilities, Franchises and Urban Economic Development” (UMBC Economics Department Working Paper 03-103) by Dennis Coates and Brad R. Humphreys of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County we find this quote:

    “Siegfried and Zimbalist (2000) recently surveyed the growing literature on retrospective studies of the economic impact of sports facilities and franchises on local economies. The literature published in peer-reviewed academic journals differs strikingly from the predictions in ‘economic impact studies.’ No retrospective econometric study found any evidence of positive economic impact from professional sports facilities or franchises on urban economies.”

    Arena Tax Requires Everyone to Subsidize the Interests of a Few

    Since, as current research has found, arenas do not generate the positive economic impact that their supporters claim, the arena tax instead becomes the public as a whole subsidizing the leisure activities of a relatively small number of people. The people who do use the arena, moreover, are quite easy to identify: they purchase tickets to events, or they pay to rent the arena. It is these people who should pay the full cost of the arena construction and operation.

    Local Officials Not Truthful

    Sedgwick County Commissioners stated that if the downtown arena sales tax did not pass, they would borrow money to renovate the Kansas Coliseum. If we do the math on the figures they quoted, that is to borrow $55 million and pay it back at $6.1 million a year for 20 years, we find that the interest rate is 9.17%, which is a terribly high interest rate for a government to pay. The county commissioners told us they were ready to pay this much if the arena tax didn’t pass.

    I wrote to Sedgwick County Commissioner Tom Winters, asking him for an explanation. He replied that the interest rate is really 7.5% for this reason: To the $55.3 million cost of the renovations, we must add $6.5 million for capitalized interest during the construction period, and $.9 million for debt issuance costs. So yes, Commissioner Winters is correct about the 7.5% rate, but this also means that the cost of the Coliseum renovations should be stated as $62.7 million instead of $55 million. But even 7.5% interest is too high to pay.

    What is troubling is that local government officials are not being truthful with the public.

  • GOP and ex-GOP Legislators Promoting Higher Kansas Taxes

    From Karl Peterjohn, Executive Director Kansas Taxpayers Network

    In a March 4 report on Democrat Washington Day events in Topeka, Hawver News Editor Martin Hawver told about two well known Republicans involved in this statewide Democratic Party event. First is former state representative and former house majority leader Joe Hoagland, ex-Rino Johnson County, who told Democrats that, “I’m never going back,” to the KS GOP. Hoagland also claimed that there were a number of fellow GOP “moderates” aka as liberals who would be joining him on becoming Democrats. None were named in this article. Hoagland briefly flirted last year with challenging Sam Brownback in the 2004 GOP primary but decided not to do so.

    Also attending this event was, as Hawver described him, “trial lawyer,” state Senator John Vratil, R-Johnson County. Vratil could have also been described as a school district attorney as well as Vice President of the Kansas senate or vice chairman of the senate’s education committee or chairman of the judiciary committee.

    Hawver reported that Vratil wanted to see fellow trial attorney John Edwards speak to the Democrat gathering and was attending as a guest of the senate minority leader Tony Hensley. Hawver explicitly said that Vratil was definitely not following Joe Hoagland’s departure from the ranks of the northeast Kansas Rino’s for the Kansas Democratic Party. Regardless of how liberal Vratil can be (he has one of the lowest fiscal scores on KTN’s vote rating) I cannot see Sen. Vratil leaving the GOP while there are 30 Republicans out of 40 Kansas senate seats.

    This is information that Kansas conservatives and folks interested in the Repubican Party in Kansas should know about concerning these efforts at “bipartisanship,” as well as a better understanding of the domination by tax ‘n spend, socially liberal Republicans in the Kansas senate’s current leadership. Soon, that leadership is expected to provide a “revenue enhancement” to help fund the second and third year school spending hike proposals coming out of the senate education committee and its liberal Republican leadership.

    Last week the senate GOP majority passed a school spending bill that would increase state spending by almost $150 million a year above the current $2.7 billion for less than 445,000 FTE students in the FY 2006 budget. This bill would also require additional increases in local property taxes above this amount because of the state’s spending growth can automatically trigger higher school district spending within the state’s quite complicated school finance formula. Currently, if all state, local, and federal funds in the current budget year are spent, the average per pupil expenditures are budgeted at $10,162 in the 2004-05 school year.

    Governor Sebelius, legislative Democrats, school district lobbyists and adminstrators as well as their attornies who are promoting the school finance litigation are all claiming that higher taxes must occur to meet the Kansas Supreme Court’s January 3, 2005 school finance edict. The court’s decision, that cited several areas where public school funding should be increased, is not final but is subject to court revision on or after April 12, 2005.

    The legislature is scheduled for an April 1, 2005 first adjournment but will return to Topeka for a three day “veto” or wrap up session on April 27. In 2002, then Governor Graves was successful in getting over $350 million in higher sales, gasoline, cigarette, business franchise, and other taxes enacted during this “veto” session. Since there is not a daily newspaper in this state with a daily circulation exceeding 5,000 a day that has opposed any of the numerous tax, fee, or other “revenue enhancements” that have become annual events in this state since 1999, the final outcome from this year’s legislature is quite uncertain.

    Last week the Kansas senate rejected two separate proposals to raise state taxes. A proposal to add a 7.5% surcharge and give Kansas the highest personal income tax rate in our five state region was defeated with only nine votes cast in favor (6 Democrats and 3 Rino’s) proposed by Sen. Pete Brungardt, Rino-Salina. Manhattan Rino Senator Roger Reitz’s proposal to raise the state’s sales tax by 1/2 cent or almost 10 percent (current rate is 5.3%) received only five votes from tax ‘n spend liberal Republicans, but most of the senate Democrats passed on this vote.

    The trial attorney heading up the plaintiffs in the Kansas Supreme Court lawsuit, Alan Rupe, is quote in today’s newspapers that both the senate and house passed school finance spending increase proposals are not adequate and in violation of the Kansas Supreme Court’s decision. KTN has not been successful in convincing the legislature to add a provision to the school finance formula that would do three things critical for improving the deeply flawed and expensive school finance system in Kansas. The three changes are: 1) Require that all federal school funds be included in local school district budgets–currently, most Kansas school districts exclude federal title funds from their official budgets; 2) require voter approval for any local or state tax hikes for; and 3) cut state funding for any local school district that either challenges the constitutionality of school finance in Kansas or the adequacy of state funding. If the school district’s lost $5 in state funding for every $1 spent the previous year for school lawsuits, I think this litigation’s funding would dry up quickly. However, if I’m wrong, let’s cut the funding by $10.