Voice For Liberty

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  • Kansas budget gap, the real numbers

    On Friday the Kansas Consensus Revenue Estimating Group met and released their estimate of revenue for the remainder of the current fiscal year and the next. (The current fiscal year is 2010, which ends on June 30, just about 2.5 months from now. Fiscal year 2011 starts on July 1.)

    Revenue estimates for both years were revised downwards. For the remainder of fiscal year 2010, the revenue estimate was revised downwards by $46.4 million, or 0.9 percent from the November estimate. For fiscal year 2010, the number was revised downward by decreased by $83.8 million, or 1.6 percent from November’s estimate.

    These numbers are important because they are the numbers that the legislature, by law, has to work from when it reconvenes on April 28. Having a common set of numbers to work with means that arguments as to whose estimates of revenue are correct are avoided. Some degree of politicization of the budget is eliminated.

    The release of the revenue estimates caused Kansas Governor Mark Parkinson to release a statement that read, in part: “This estimate confirms what we have predicted since the start of the year — despite having already cut more than a billion dollars in state spending, Kansas still faces a $510 million budget shortfall. This hole is too big to fill with additional cuts. $510 million in cuts would decimate our schools, public safety programs and safety net services for our most vulnerable Kansas.” This was followed by a reassertion of his proposal to temporarily increase the sales tax by one cent on the dollar.

    The governor said that cuts in spending would “decimate our schools.” This is contraindicated by noting that USD 259, the Wichita public school district, found a way to save $2.5 million per year by adjusting school starting times, thereby saving on transportation costs. Undoubtedly more savings like this can be found.

    Not everyone agrees with the governor’s numbers and the need for a tax increase. Two weeks ago the Kansas Policy Institute placed a newspaper advertisement that explained some of the problems with the governor’s facts and his promotion of a tax increase. The numbers cited in the ad are a little different now that we have the recent revenue estimates, but the points are the same: The purportedly large “gap” is based on what the governor wants to spend, not what needs to be spent. There are many ways to save money, and tax increases will harm Kansas.

    Following is the text of the Kansas Policy Institute ad:

    With all due respect Governor Parkinson, your claims about state spending and your premise for tax increases simply aren’t true.

    First of all, the primary cause of the budget “gap” isn’t to prevent drastic cuts to state spending, it’s that you want to increase state spending by $380 million.

    Your proposed general fund budget of $5.831 billion is 7% higher than your estimate of FY 2010 spending and $1.1 billion more than we spent in FY 2005. The state provided good services when we spent a billion dollars less and it’s disingenuous to claim that we couldn’t possibly spend less without devastating the ability to meet taxpayers’ needs.

    The true “gap” is $122 million, which is the amount that revenues are predicted to decline next year. There are many viable options to cover the revenue shortfall without raising anyone’s taxes or eliminating services. Here are just a few:

    • Sell some state property. Some legislators already have a plan in place that could generate up to $150 million.
    • Pay schools sooner (and on time) so they don’t need large carryover cash balances to pay their bills, freeing up a large portion of nearly $700 million.
    • Privatize some services and functions. Private sector employers can do a job for less money and the services would still be available.

    There are many more examples listed on our web site at www.KansasPolicy.org.

    The Kansas economy is already absorbing $163 million in higher unemployment taxes, which is predicted to cause further job loss. Raising other taxes will cost more jobs and do further damage to the economy. We can maintain current state spending without raising anyone’s taxes, and we respectfully ask that you adopt that common-sense approach and drop your demand for harmful tax increases.

  • Why I’m not a great fan of the Constitution

    One of the reasons that I’m not as much of a fan of the Constitution as some are is that the Constitution means what the courts, particularly the Supreme Court, say it means. The courts say the Constitution means some pretty crazy things, while at the same time, the idea of the Constitution limiting government has morphed into a tool for promoting the growth of government.

    I quote at length from Murray N. Rothbard’s book For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto. Perhaps this will help explain why I am a libertarian and not a conservative.

    First, from page 48. A constitution must be interpreted and enforced by men:

    It is true that, in the United States, at least, we have a constitution that imposes strict limits on some powers of government. But, as we have discovered in the past century, no constitution can interpret or enforce itself; it must be interpreted by men. And if the ultimate power to interpret a constitution is given to the government’s own Supreme Court, then the inevitable tendency is for the Court to continue to place its imprimatur on ever-broader powers for its own government. Furthermore, the highly touted “checks and balances” and “separation of powers” in the American government are flimsy indeed, since in the final analysis all of these divisions are part of the same government and are governed by the same set of rulers.

    Then from page 66. Instead of limiting government, courts use the Constitution to legitimize growing government:

    Certainly, the most ambitious attempt in history to impose limits on the State was the Bill of Rights and other restrictive parts of the United States Constitution. Here, written limits on government became the fundamental law, to be interpreted by a judiciary supposedly independent of the other branches of government. All Americans are familiar with the process by which John C. Calhoun’s prophetic analysis has been vindicated; the State’s own monopoly judiciary has inexorably broadened the construction of State power over the last century and a half. But few have been as keen as liberal Professor Charles Black — who hails the process — in seeing that the State has been able to transform judicial review itself from a limiting device into a powerful instrument for gaining legitimacy for its actions in the minds of the public. If a judicial decree of “unconstitutional” is a mighty check on governmental power, so too a verdict of “constitutional” is an equally mighty weapon for fostering public acceptance of ever greater governmental power.

    From page 69, the solution is given:

    Thus, even in the United States, unique among governments in having a constitution, parts of which at least were meant to impose strict and solemn limits upon its actions, even here the Constitution has proved to be an instrument for ratifying the expansion of State power rather than the opposite. As Calhoun saw, any written limits that leave it to government to interpret its own powers are bound to be interpreted as sanctions for expanding and not binding those powers. In a profound sense, the idea of binding down power with the chains of a written constitution has proved to be a noble experiment that failed. The idea of a strictly limited government has proved to be utopian; some other, more radical means must be found to prevent the growth of the aggressive State. The libertarian system would meet this problem by scrapping the entire notion of creating a government — an institution with a coercive monopoly of force over a given territory — and then hoping to find ways to keep that government from expanding. The libertarian alternative is to abstain from such a monopoly government to begin with.

  • Sedgwick County delinquent tax list for 2015

    Sedgwick County delinquent tax list for 2015

    Here is the delinquent property tax list for Sedgwick County for 2015, summarized and presented in an interactive table that you may sort.

    Of note, the two property owners with the largest delinquent balances are the City of Wichita and the Kansas Turnpike Authority.

    Inquiry to the City of Wichita reveals that two properties, 3239 E 1st and 3244 E Douglas ($72,282.69 and $47,878.37), are left over from a real estate developer’s default. He, not the city, was responsible for these taxes. A third property is a leased property related to the East Kellogg expansion, and the tenant is responsible for the taxes. For another property, the taxes were paid late, and another was an error that has been corrected.

    The Sedgwick County Treasurer issues this caution:

    Public notice is hereby given that taxes on Personal Property located in Sedgwick County, State of Kansas, is unpaid, in whole or in part, and here appears the name of each delinquent taxpayer followed by his/her last known address and the total amount of unpaid taxes, penalties and costs.

    Some of the names listed may have already paid their personal property taxes or may be awaiting results of a tax grievance or tax protest before paying the taxes due. Unfortunately, it is not practical to delete these names.

    I regret any undue embarrassment this may cause those who are still awaiting tax protest decisions.

    Linda Kizzire
    Sedgwick County Treasurer

    Click here to access this data.

  • Kansas schools shortchanged by accounting systems

    Kansas schools shortchanged by accounting systems

    Kansas schools could receive $21 million annually in federal funds if the state had adequate information systems in place.

    One of the nuggets buried in a policy brief released last year by Kansas Policy Institute is that the state is not capturing all federal funds to which it is entitled. That is, would be able to capture if the state had adequate information systems in place. Here’s a section of the policy brief:

    Capture federal reimbursement of K-12 KPERS costs

    States are entitled to be reimbursed by the federal government for the pension costs of school employees engaged in the delivery of federally-funded services, such as Special Education and Food Service. Kansas, however, foregoes federal reimbursement because many school districts’ payroll systems lack the ability to properly capture the necessary information. (Estimates are not permitted; the information must flow through payroll systems.) The State should require that school districts utilize a single state-provided or outsourced payroll system to capture annual federal reimbursement of $21 million.

    Here is a sum of money that Kansas schools could receive if only Kansas had the necessary information systems infrastructure in place. A side benefit would likely be better management of school systems’ payroll if such a system was in place.

    Is $21 million a significant sum when the state spends several billions on schools each year? The Kansas school spending establishment contends that a tax credit scholarship that might divert $10 million from the state to private schools is something that schools can’t afford. But here’s an example of twice that amount being available if Kansas school leadership had the will to obtain it.

    The Kansas Policy Institute policy brief “A Five-Year Budget Plan for the State of Kansas: How to balance the budget and have healthy ending balances without tax increases or service reductions” is just ten pages in length. It may be downloaded from KPI here or alternatively from Scribd here (may work better on mobile devices). A press release from KPI announcing the policy brief is at 5 Year Budget Plan Outlines Path To Protect Essential Services and Tax Refom.

  • KansasOpenGov.org provides state data to citizens

    KansasOpenGov.org provides an easy-to-access repository of data about Kansas state and local governments, giving citizens the data they need to hold officials accountable.

    KansasOpenGov.org is a project of the Kansas Policy Institute. This week I spoke to KPI President Dave Trabert and received a demonstration of the website and some ways it can be used.

    On its opening page, KansasOpenGov.org displays a map of Kansas, showing the county boundaries. As you roll the pointer over each county, data about taxes and population appears. Clicking on a county displays a table of tax and population data for the last 12 years.

    Many subject areas of KansasOpenGov.org allow you to search the database in your own way, but also provide pre-defined reports and charts that can be accessed with one click. For example, under “Pay and Benefits” there are two such reports, showing state employees earning $100,000 or more, and another showing overtime pay.

    The overtime pay report holds some interesting numbers, as shown in the accompanying video walkthrough. Some employees are earning a lot in overtime. Trabert said: “When government says we couldn’t possibly spend any less — as we heard from the governor and others in the last session in order to justify a tax increase — when you have people who sit behind desks such as planners and program consultants earning over $30,000 in overtime — it begs the question: How close are you looking?”

    High overtime expenses may mean that agencies should look to hire additional employees rather than paying expensive overtime. Some jobs, such as highway patrol officers, are stressful, and high overtime earnings may mean employees are working long hours. This may be unfair to them as well as unproductive.

    Another subject area of KansasOpenGov.org is school district revenue and spending. This data is supplied by the Kansas State Department of Education, which in turn gets data from school districts. The “District Comparison Tool” displays two charts, side-by-side, and visitors can select different districts to be shown in each chart.

    KansasOpenGov.org has added some additional data, such as an indication for each school district as to whether it has joined Schools for Fair Funding, the organization that is suing the state for more funding. This allows users to compare these schools with all schools. Interestingly, the SFFF schools receive substantially more state and federal funding (on a per-pupil basis) than the statewide average for all Kansas schools. The SFFF schools receive less local funding, however. But overall, they received more funding than the average school district.

    Other insight that can be found at KansasOpenGov.org is the fact that schools increased their contingency fund balances last year at the same time they laid off teachers and other staff. Again, this lead Trabert to question the claims of spenders, this time the schools: “What we want to show is that when people say we can’t spend any less, you’re hurting the kids, and they’re asking for a tax increase: taxpayers have the right to know the facts. … The state has the right to justify the spending, but people don’t get a chance to ask for the justification if they don’t know the facts.”

    Growth in Kansas property taxesGrowth in Kansas property taxes. Click for a larger view.

    The section on property taxes lets visitors create charts for each county showing the growth in taxes, inflation, and population. For most counties, and for the state as a whole, taxes increase much faster than inflation or population.

    Some of the data the system makes available requires additional explanation. For example, looking at the state’s checkbook shows a check written by the treasurer for $269,940,000.00 with the notation “DEFEASED DEBT – PRINCIPAL PAYMENTS.” This language — provided to KansasOpenGov.org by the state — certainly needs explanation.

    In other cases, some of the data the state supplies may be misleading at first glance. For example, a look at employees of the Legislature and their pay shows one member of the Kansas House of Representatives being paid over $106,000 in one year — way more than legislators actually earn. But this person also has another state job, and the two pay sources are combined in the data the state supplies.

    KansasOpenGov.org lets users download most data to spreadsheet programs such as Microsoft Excel, which means that the data can be further analyzed and presented.

    Going forward, the system is built and operating, and Trabert said that new data will be added to the database as it becomes available from the state. He also plans to add more data about individual school districts. The state refused to provide benefits costs for state employees, and Trabert hopes the state will provide this data in addition to base pay and overtime data.

  • Kansas has a spending problem, not a tax problem

    By Kansas Policy Institute.

    The data could not be clearer.  Kansas has higher state taxes than many states because Kansas spends a lot more than those states.  Every state has public schools, highways, social services, safety net programs, etc.  But some states find ways to provide those services at a much better price.  They spend less and therefore tax less (and grow more).

    Kansas spends 34 percent more than the states with no income tax, in both the General Fund and All State Spending.  As a result, Kansas has to tax residents at much higher levels than most states.

    Opponents of tax reform have tried to claim that oil and gas severance taxes in Texas make up for their lack on income tax, but that clearly isn’t true.  Texas only has a $94 per-capita advantage over Kansas on severance taxes. Texas’ real advantage is that it simply doesn’t spend as much as Kansas.

    Our dynamic analysis of Kansas’ 2012 tax reform showed that only a one-time reduction of $186 in General Fund per-capita spending was needed to balance the budget.  Kansas could do that and still be the high-spender in the region.  Instead, many legislators and the administration are trying to make up most of the budget gap by raising the sales tax and other revenue increases.

    The argument is that consumption taxes are less damaging to the economy than income taxes.  That’s true, but using a sales tax increase to avoid dealing with the real problem of excess spending is foisting an unnecessary tax on citizens that will damage the economy.

    The House and Senate budget proposals do have some small spending reductions, and it is certainly a daunting task for legislators to lead real spending reform; they have to face unending requests for more spending and an entrenched bureaucracy that often makes it difficult for reform-minded legislators to get the information they need.  And the prospect of re-election is ever-present for most.

    But even this late in the session, solutions exist that would avoid a sales tax increase without arbitrary spending reductions.  Our Legislator’s Guide to Delivering Better Service at a Better Price (published in February) shows how to use existing cash balances to close the budget gap and ‘buy time’ to implement thoughtful spending reforms.

    Even if the current budget is balanced with a tax increase this year (which, at this writing, seems likely), the spending problem isn’t going away.  There are some small spending reductions in the current plans but every plan allows overall spending to continue to increase…while further reducing income taxes in future years.  Simply put, the problem only gets worse the longer it is ignored.

  • What’s really the matter with Kansas

    By Dave Trabert, Kansas Policy Institute.

    A May 22 story in the Wichita Eagle about the Kansas Legislature’s lack of focus on job creation in the just-concluded legislative session provides great insight into the economic stagnation the Sunflower State has suffered over the last decade.

    According to the Kansas Department of Labor, between April 2008 and April 2011 the state lost 73,200 private sector jobs, 500 state government jobs and 500 local government jobs. Last year, despite warnings from two academic studies that a sales tax increase would cost thousands of jobs, legislators did it anyway — and sure enough, between July 1, 2010 and April 30, 2011 we lost 5,000 private sector jobs (seasonally adjusted according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics for comparability). State government employment didn’t change over that time frame.

    So what was the focus of that lengthy article? The loss of government jobs. Private sector jobs were barely mentioned.

    The Eagle article spoke of a large number of state job cuts without mentioning that the majority were vacant positions. But there was no mention of last year’s legislative action that destroyed private sector jobs by raising the sales tax so government could spend more money.

    That pretty much sums up the job problem in Kansas for the last decade: lots of concern about protecting government and not much more than lip service for the private sector.

    The article painted a dire picture for education but failed to mention that total state spending on K-12 will increase by more than $100 million next year. Mandatory spending increases on school employee retirement benefits, special education programs and school bond payments prompted a reduction in the starting point of the funding formula (base state aid), but legislators also passed a law allowing districts to make up the difference in base state aid. Districts are allowed to transfer carryover cash balances from a variety of funds for operational purposes — and all but one district started this year with enough money in those funds to do so. Most, in fact, have more than $1,000 per pupil in those funds. Districts have the ability to avoid the layoffs mentioned in this article, so why did the reporter and the people he interviewed fail to mention it?

    The reporter also didn’t provide readers with the context of the education job cuts. Statewide, there are 4.6% more teachers in the wake of the cuts than there were in 2005, and all other school employment is up by 8.6%, while enrollment is up just 3.1%. It’s a shame that those people lost their jobs but it would be nice to see just as much concern for unemployed private sector workers.

    The Rural Opportunity Zones created by the Kansas Legislature are a good step forward, but the change that would create more jobs than any other effort — eventually eliminating the income tax — was killed in the Senate. The Senate wouldn’t even allow it to be discussed.

    Kansas will continue to suffer the economic stagnation we’ve seen over the last decade until we stop valuing government jobs over private sector jobs. That’s what is really the matter with Kansas.

    Dave Trabert is the President of the Kansas Policy Institute.

  • Kansas Speaker Mike O’Neal at AFP Summit

    Representative Mike O’Neal, Republican from Hutchinson, is the new Speaker of the Kansas House of Representatives. He spoke on January 10 at Americans For Prosperity‘s Defending the American Dream Summit in Wichita.

    His speech warned of tough times ahead, with a difficult job for both the legislature and citizens. Part of the problem is that we’ve been spending a lot in recent years: “Kansas is a cash basis state. We have spent more in the last four years than we’ve taken in, primarily because we’ve had healthy balances, and because we have had, historically, some decent economic growth. That, however, is not, and should not be, the justification for growing government and continuing to spend money without looking out on the horizon to see what economic markets are going to do.”

    He said that the current year deficit (the fiscal year ending June 30, 2009) is around $190 million. But the number to aim for is $290 million, so that there is an ending balance. Then for fiscal year 2010 (July 1, 2009 to June 30, 2010), somewhere near $1 billion.

    That’s the bad news, he said. “The good news is that presents us with an excellent opportunity to do things fundamentally different with the way we look at state budgets. … It would probably surprise many of you in this room to learn that we do not conduct financial audits of the state budget, and have not done that for a number of years.”

    “We simply spend our session looking at the governor’s enhancement budget for those agencies, and determine what, if any, enhancements we’re going to allow. That is not going to happen this year. … We are looking at making fundamental cuts in the budget.”

    He went on to say that we’ve known of the trouble with the budget for about 90 days. So why hasn’t anything been done? The legislature couldn’t do anything because it wasn’t in session. But, Governor Kathleen Sebelius can do things when the legislature is not in session. She can make targeted cuts. With permission of the finance council, she could make across-the-board cuts. But she’s not done either.

    The Wichita Eagle provided coverage of O’Neal’s talk, including some remarks made afterwards, in the article Speaker says cuts will be painful.

  • Kansas budget solution overlooked

    As Kansas prepares for a legislative session that must find ways to balance a budget in the face of declining revenues, not all solutions are being considered.

    Generally, the choices are presented as either raising revenues or cutting services. An example comes from H. Edward Flentje of Wichita State University. In a recent op-ed, he presents two solutions: (a) raising more revenue, by canceling the recently-passed tax cuts and retaining the current sales tax rate hike instead of letting it expire, or (b) cutting services. (H. Edward Flentje : State facing fiscal cliff, December 16, 2012 Wichita Eagle)

    In the Kansas City Star, Steve Rose made a similar argument.

    I hope that “cutting services” means cutting spending on services, not the actual level of services the state provides, although that could probably use some trimming, too.

    How much spending does the state need to cut? Kansas Policy Institute has calculated that a one-time spending cut of 8.5 percent, followed by spending growth of four percent per year, would produce a balanced budget with ending balances.

    Does anyone think this goal can’t be met? If not, then perhaps cutting four percent in each of the next two years could be a goal.

    But either way, we can cut spending while maintaining services people have become accustomed to expect from government. Remaking government is a way to do this. We can make government more efficient, despite the claims that it is impossible to do so.

    As an example, in 2010 the Wichita school district saved $2.5 million per year by adjusting school starting times, thereby saving on transportation costs. This was after district officials claimed — repeatedly — there was nothing they could cut. Spending had already been “cut to the bone,” officials said.

    When we see incidents like this, the governing body trumpets the savings, and then, unfortunately, often stops looking for savings. But we need to keep looking. An example of a way to save money is school choice.

    School choice saves states money

    While proponents of public school spending argue that school choice programs drain away dollars from what they claim are underfunded public schools, this is not the case.

    In 2007 The Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice released the study School Choice by the Numbers: The Fiscal Effect of School Choice Programs, 1990-2006. According to the executive summary: “Every existing school choice program is at least fiscally neutral, and most produce a substantial savings.”

    How can this be? The public school spending lobby, which in Kansas is primarily the Kansas National Education Association (KNEA, the teachers union) and the Kansas Association of School Boards (KASB), would have us believe that educational freedom would kill public education. They say that school choice program drain scarce resources from the public school system.

    But when researchers looked at the actual effects, they found this: “In nearly every school choice program, the dollar value of the voucher or scholarship is less than or equal to the state’s formula spending per student. This means states are spending the same amount or less on students in school choice programs than they would have spent on the same students if they had attended public schools, producing a fiscal savings.”

    So at the state level, school choice programs save money. They don’t cost money to implement; they save money.

    Further research on school choice programs funded through tax credits confirms this.

    Other ways to save

    In 2011 the Kansas Legislature lost three opportunities to save money and improve the operations of state government. Three bills, each with this goal, were passed by the House of Representatives, but each failed to pass through the moderate-controlled Senate, or had its contents stripped and replaced with different legislation.

    Each of these bills represents a lost opportunity for state government services to be streamlined, delivered more efficiently, or measured and managed. These goals, while always important, are now essential for the success of Kansas government and the state’s economy.

    Kansas Streamlining Government Act

    HB 2120, according to its supplemental note, “would establish the Kansas Streamlining Government Act, which would have the purpose of improving the performance, efficiency, and operations of state government by reviewing certain state agencies, programs, boards, and commissions.” Fee-funded agencies — examples include Kansas dental board and Kansas real estate commission — would be exempt from this bill.

    In more detail, the text of the bill explains: “The purposes of the Kansas streamlining government act are to improve the performance, streamline the operations, improve the effectiveness and efficiency, and reduce the operating costs of the executive branch of state government by reviewing state programs, policies, processes, original positions, staffing levels, agencies, boards and commissions, identifying those that should be eliminated, combined, reorganized, downsized or otherwise altered, and recommending proposed executive reorganization orders, executive orders, legislation, rules and regulations, or other actions to accomplish such changes and achieve such results.”

    In testimony in support of this legislation, Dave Trabert, President of Kansas Policy Institute offered testimony that echoed findings of the public choice school of economics and politics: “Some people may view a particular expenditure as unnecessary to the fulfillment of a program’s or an agency’s primary mission while others may see it as essential. Absent an independent review, we are expecting government employees to put their own self-interests aside and make completely unbiased decisions on how best to spend taxpayer funds. It’s not that government employees are intentionally wasteful; it’s that they are human beings and setting self-interests aside is challenge we all face.”

    The bill passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 79 to 40. It was referred to the Senate Committee on Federal and State Affairs, where it did not advance. HB 2120 died in a senate committee chaired by Pete Brungardt, who was defeated in August.

    Privatization and public-private partnerships

    Another bill that did not advance was HB 2194, which in its original form would have created the Kansas Advisory Council on Privatization and Public-Private Partnerships.

    According to the supplemental note for the bill, “The purpose of the Council would be to ensure that certain state agencies, including the Board of Regents and postsecondary educational institutions, would: 1) focus on the core mission and provide goods and services efficiently and effectively; 2) develop a process to analyze opportunities to improve efficiency, cost-effectiveness and provide quality services, operations, functions, and activities; and 3) evaluate for feasibility, cost-effectiveness, and efficiency opportunities that could be outsourced. Excluded from the state agencies covered by the bill would be any entity not receiving State General Fund or federal funds appropriation.”

    This bill passed by a vote of 68 to 51 in the House of Representatives. It did not advance in the Senate, falling victim to a “gut-and-go” maneuver where its contents were replaced with legislation on an entirely different topic. Steve Morris, president of the Kansas Senate and a member of the moderate coalition, chaired the committee that killed this legislation. He won’t be in the Senate next year.

    Performance measures

    Another bill that didn’t pass the entire legislature was HB 2158, which would have created performance measures for state agencies and reported that information to the public. The supplemental note says that the bill “as amended, would institute a new process for modifying current performance measures and establishing new standardized performance measures to be used by all state agencies in support of the annual budget requests. State agencies would be required to consult with representatives of the Director of the Budget and the Legislative Research Department to modify each agency’s current performance measures, to standardize such performance measures, and to utilize best practices in all state agencies.” Results of the performance measures would be posted on a public website.

    This bill passed the House of Representatives by a nearly unanimous vote of 119 to 2, with Wichita’s Nile Dillmore and Geraldine Flaharty the two nay votes.

    Opposition to these bills from Democrats often included remarks on the irony of those who were recently elected on the promise of shrinking government now proposing to enlarge government through the creation of these commissions and councils. These bills, however, proposed to spend modest amounts increasing the manageability of government, not the actual range and scope of government itself. As it turns out, many in the legislature — this includes Senate Republicans who initiated or went along with the legislative maneuvers that killed these bills — are happy with the operations of state government remaining in the shadows.

    HB 2158 was victim of a “gut-and-go” maneuver in a committee chaired by Carolyn McGinn, another member of the moderate coalition. She will be returning to the senate next year, but probably won’t have the ability to stop legislation like this.

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