Kansas Liberty reports that the balancing act performed by Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius on the fiscal year 2009 budget is, well, a little off-kilter. (Fiscal 2009 is the current budget year, ending on June 30, 2009).

In the post Sebelius’ new budget misses the target by $50 million we learn that relying on budget numbers just two months old leads to a budget plan that won’t address the full reality of the situation:

But the use of out-dated numbers means the budget will result in a deficit, no matter how accurate the projections are.

Sebelius’ budget recommendations are based on the November Consensus Revenue Estimating Group’s initial deficit projection of $141 million for fiscal year 2009, and $1.021 billion for fiscal year 2010.

However, new revenue shortfalls have suggested a more accurate picture is a deficit of $185.5 million for fiscal year 2009 and $1.066 billion for fiscal year 2010, as reported yesterday in Kansas Liberty.

Last week in Wichita, questioning by Senator Susan Wagle seemed to indicate a deficit of around $200 million. Privately, one senator told me he would not be surprised to see the deficit balloon to $250 million by the end of June, as economic conditions seem to worsen every day.

Martin Hawver explained the politics behind the Governor’s decision to use the Consensus Revenue Estimating Group’s figures of $141 million in his article The politics of budget cutting:

The Consensus Revenue Estimating Group, comprised of fiscal wizards who, well, estimate future revenues into the State General Fund, predicts that revenues will fall at least $211 million before the fiscal year ends on June 30, 2009. What that means is that spending approved by last year’s Legislature is about $140 million more than Kansas is likely to have (the state had been looking forward to ending this fiscal year with a small balance). … Here’s the political good part, if we can call it that. Sebelius has to meet the figures produced by the revenue estimators back on Nov. 4, and revenues have gotten worse since then. But the Nov. 4 estimate, legally, is the target she is required to meet. … It probably means that the Legislature is going to have to cut more spending this fiscal year, but Sebelius gets to make the least-icky of the cuts. And the political focus will be on the Legislature’s additional cuts to get through this fiscal year.

Thank you to Karl Peterjohn for compiling this valuable resource. You can examine the rankings at the Kansas Taxpayers Network website at www.kansastaxpayers.com. Following is a press release describing the ratings.

17 Legislators Earn 100% rating for 2006 Fiscal Votes

“There are 17 Kansas legislators who scored 100% on the Kansas Taxpayers Network’s 2006 fiscal scorecard,” said KTN Executive Director Karl Peterjohn. Legislators were measured on their votes on tax and fiscal issues as well as their votes on reining in judicial activists and judicial appropriations. This scorecard also measured on their votes on correcting eminent domain abuse in the wake of the controversial Kelo decision by the U.S. Supreme Court. KTN also scored legislators on votes cast that would make this state more economically competitive with the rest of the country and provide property tax relief.

“KTN has posted the 2006 legislative vote rating at www.kansastaxpayers.com,” said Peterjohn. “We hope that all fiscally concerned Kansans will carefully examine how their legislators have been voting at the statehouse during this election year.”

There are nine house members who scored 100% on KTN’s rating: Rep. Anthony Brown, R-Eudora; Rep. Steve Huebert, R-Valley Center; Rep. Lance Kinzer, R-Olathe; Rep. Forrest Knox, R-Fredonia; Rep. Brenda Landwehr, R-Wichita; Rep. Ty Masterson, R-Andover; Rep. Don Myers, R-Derby; Rep. Mary Pilcher-Cook, R-Shawnee; and Rep. Jason Watkins, R-Wichita.

Eight senators earned 100% from KTN. They are: Sen. Jim Barnett, R-Emporia; Sen. Tim Huelskamp, R-Meade; Sen. Phil Journey, R-Haysville; Sen. Kay O’Connor, R-Olathe; Sen. Ralph Ostmeyer, R-Grinnell; Sen. Peggy Palmer, R-Augusta; Sen. Mike Petersen, R-Wichita; Sen. Dennis Pyle, R-Hiawatha; and Sen. Susan Wagle, R-Wichita.

In addition, there were 16 senators and 50 representatives who scored 75% or higher on KTN’s 2006 vote rating and are listed as “taxpayer friendly,” by this group. Peterjohn added, “KTN’s scorecard is valuable since many other groups that used to measure legislators” votes no longer use a straightforward scoring system that is transparent and readily understandable to Kansans.”

Kansas Taxpayers Network (KTN) is a statewide taxpayer organization based in Wichita. This is the 11th year that KTN has rated legislators’ fiscal votes. Legislators are measured on both their 2006 votes as well as their lifetime score based upon votes cast while serving in the legislature since 1996. KTN also circulates the Taxpayer Protection Pledge and will be issuing a news release on pledge signers before the August 1 primary election.

Thank you to Karl Peterjohn, Kansas Taxpayers Network, for this fine article containing information we don’t see in our state’s newspapers.

Why is information like this important to our liberty? It’s because much of what our state spends consists of simply taking the property of one person and giving it to someone else. Add to that the fact that much of this spending is on public schools, that our government leaders firmly refuse to allow us choice in schools (vouchers), this spending (and resultant taxation) amounts to a huge assault on liberty, our freedoms, and our wealth.

Senate spending spree blows roof off Kansas capitol
March 30, 2006 @ 11:30 AM

The government school spending spree is erupting in the Kansas senate today. The senate took up the horrific house passed HB 2986 this morning. Over three years Sen. Karin Brownlee said this bill would cost a total of $1.38 billion.

Two amendments to lower the spending increases failed. The first would have limited spending growth to $670 million failed on a 17-to-20 vote with three legislators showing their profile in courage and passing! Then the original house spending plan that would raise school spending over $1 billion over three years was taken up and failed 17-to-23.

Once again unified Democrats and their big spending GOP allies headed up by school district attorney Sen. John Vratil and Wichita school district specialist Sen. Jean Schodorf (they are vice chair and chair of the education committees, does anyone see a special interest there?) easily defeated these slightly smaller spending bills with the votes of their liberal allies.

Sen. Karin Brownlee warned the senate that the house passed H 2986 would “…spend the roof off the dome…,” if this passed. So far, the smallest spending increase amendment to this bill came from Sen. Jim Barnett who had a four-year spending hike plan. Barnett’s proposal did not receive a single Democrat vote and the most “moderate,” ie. liberal Republicans voted against it: Allen, Brungardt, Emler, Morris, Reitz, D. Schmidt, V. Schmidt, Teichman, Umbarger, Vratil, & Wysong. The three passing were McGinn and two Democrats: Haley and Lee.

Barnett warned the senate that continuing the spending spree that began in the 2005 regular legislative session and was compounded by the court mandated special session was going to lead this state into major financial mess. He was not alone in these concerns. He was joined by a majority of senate Republicans including excellent comments from senators Brownlee and Wagle.

Sen. Les Donovan joined warned the senate that there are, “… built in (spending) escalators and they are not going away,” and that the cumulative impact is to put the state in a $600 million fiscal hole two years from now.

The left wing and all too bipartisan senate leaders on both sides of the aisle Steve Morris, Tony Hensley, Derek Schmidt, and John Vratil do not care. As I write this, the debate continues and more amendments are being offered. The sausage mill continues to grind.

From this taxpayer advocate’s perspective it is hard to see who is more irresponsible: the usurping Kansas Supreme Court that created the fiscal environment with the lawsuit that continues to fester over the entire state, Governor Sebelius who proposes nothing but controls through her legislative leadership allies Morris/Hensley everything, or left-wing Republicans and Democrats in the legislature. The house plan was increased with the Loyd-McKinney amendment but a more accurate name for this spending spree bill would begin with Governor Sebelius, add the four senate leaders, and then the two house members: Loyd/McKinney. Then the seven members of the black robed legislature/Supreme Court’s names should be included too. All these folks’ fingerprints dominate this spending spree bill.

The scuttlebutt among some lobbyists is that there aren’t 21 votes in the senate to adopt any school finance bill. I don’t buy it. It looks like there are 21 votes to go on a spending spree that when fully implemented will place this state in such a deep financial hole that it will be decades before Kansans will see any sunlight. This is what Governor Sebelius’ father did when he was governor in Ohio for one term in the 1970’s and created that state’s debilitating income tax. Its deja vu all over again.

The big lie is that gambling is a fiscal solution. It is only a solution if you think that the $323 million of spending from 2005 when combined with $660 million in additional spending (and assuming that the state doesn’t increase spending anywhere else, fat chance) can be funded by the gambling proponents most optimistic guess of $200 million in new money (that a gross not net figure). I guess this is called “Government Math.” Even an increase in state revenues of a couple of hundred million this year will not balance this spending spree.

The government school establishment does not know how to spend this money fast enough. Full day kindergarten is already becoming universal statewide. Then the school districts will begin to expand their pre-kindergarten programs. They still will have truckloads of cash to spend.

The size of the spending spree is demonstrated by the 2005-06 increase that if nothing were added, would increase state spending per pupil by $725 per FTE pupil statewide. That’s almost chump change when the spending in HB 2986 is added to the total. That should add roughly $1,500 more per pupil and assumes that local and federal spending is not increased—which is highly unlikely. That would take average spending from about $10,000 per pupil per year (or $200,000 for a classroom with 20 kids in it) to $12,000 per pupil (or $240,000 per classroom) a year.

The legislature has been warned that financing HB 2986 would require draconian hikes in any one of the state’s major revenue sources: 22% hike in state personal income tax rates (taking us close to a max rate of 8 percent), more than doubling by over 21 mills in the statewide property tax, or at least a 38% hike in the state sales tax rate. What would be most likely is a combination of all three and perhaps adding some other excise tax hikes to the mix.

Kansas’ already obscenely high tax rates would be made even higher. The departure of businesses and productive people will grow. The governor has a key supporter, Phil Ruffin, who is already a billionaire according to Forbes Magazine’s billionaire issue. To help fund this spending spree with slots/casino’s at his racetracks he would be able to move a good ways up the Forbes list into the multiple billionaire category. Forbes reports that Ruffin lives in Nevada where the sales tax is a fraction of Kansas; there is no statewide property or personal income taxes.

The irony is that a large chunk of this new spending will not be used to raise the salaries of Kansas’ best public school teachers. The government school spending lobbies plan is to expand the number of employees (see the Augenblick and Myer report that is the basis for the court’s school finance edicts).

This is a political play for more power. More employees means more union dues and that means more political power. Ultimately, the state grows and dependency upon government will grow. Kansas union leaders will soon be getting the same mid-six figure pay that national union heads like the National Education Association currently enjoy.

This spending hike is a negative productivity plan since it will take more people to perform the same schooling that has occurred in the past. Don’t get me wrong; school employees will certainly get paid more. Superintendents will be able to trade in their Jaguars for Rolls-Royces (this is not hyperbole, there already is a superintendent driving her Jag). If teachers get 10 percent hikes principals will get a bigger percentage as will their bosses. More staff will be needed. Kansas will follow the build the government school bureaucracy model.

If the Kansas City (MO) school lawsuit experience in the 1980’s was a tragedy that cost taxpayers a couple of billion the school spending debacle in 2006 should be called a farce. Except Kansas is larger so it will be a lot more expensive. All additional efforts to provide more performance and school accountability for state spending were removed on the house floor and the efforts to re-insert these provisions on the senate floor were terminated by the liberal senators.

Since Kansas is already spending a higher percentage of its state budget for the public school establishment, the idea that taxpayers are short-changing any public school is absurd. Over 50 percent of the state’s $5.2 billion plus Gen. Fund budget already goes for public schools. When colleges are added in the figure is now approaching 70 percent. This new spending is likely to make the former figure close to 60 percent and the latter percentage around 75 percent.

Since the efforts to stop the school finance lawsuits have largely been sidetracked in the legislature the future for Kansas enterprise is high in uncertainty, increasing risk, and more automatic tax hikes. There are enough state reserves due to the 2003 Bush tax cuts that have helped grow state revenues so that no tax hike (besides the automatic property tax appraisal/income tax inflation) will be necessary in this election year of 2006 but wait till after November.

The property appraisal notices went out this month and Kansas property owners will be paying large increases. Again. This is now an annual event. One mill of the statewide property tax has now grown to over $30 million per year. In the 1990’s this figure was in the just over half this amount.

None of the statewide property tax collections for schools show up in the state’s official revenue figures. I’ll let you do the math and multiply the $30 million by the 21.5 mill statewide mill levy and add this to a 2007 state budget that will soon be pushing $6 billion for the General Fund and blow by $12 billion for the All Funds budget (Medicaid costs are soaring at double digit rates too). In 2002 the state budget reached $10 billion for the first time.

The fiscal decline of Kansas will lead to an overall decline for this state. We are a spending model for the rest of country: watch Kansas and do the opposite. Please feel free to forward this to anyone with an interest in the fiscal health of this state.

Thank you to Karl Peterjohn, Kansas Taxpayers Network, for this report on happenings in Topeka.

The Kansas senate surrendered their ability to rein the activist Sebelius and leftist dominated Kansas Supreme Court Thursday afternoon. A constitutional amendment to require senate confirmation of judges barely received a majority vote Thursday afternoon as a coalition of most senate Democrats and the Senate GOP leadership of Senate President Steve Morris and Vice President John Vratil succeeded in killing this constitutional amendment that needed a 2/3 or 27 votes to pass and move to the house.

The odious nature of this defeat was that the proposal had 28 co-sponsors including Morris, Wysong, Barone and several others who voted against their own proposal. Fortunately, many senators had their reasons for voting for or against this measure in the journal so you can see why they voted the way they did. An effort to improve this constitutional amendment by eliminating the nominating commission failed during the debate on Wednesday on a 15-to-25 vote with the Democrats joining with the liberal Republicans to kill this amendment.

The profile in pusillanimous pontification goes to Sen. Ruth Teichman who ended up passing on the bill. He equivocation “passing” serves as an effective “no” vote but allows her to state that she did not against reining in the court. The voters in her south central district need to know how weasily this behavior is on this crucial issue. Passing on difficult votes has become a common form of trying to hide their position in the Kansas senate in the last couple of years.

In all likelihood, this looks like the senate won’t even bother to pass any other constitutional amendments to reassert their own fiscal authority or rein in the court during the rest of the 2006 session. Last summer the senate passed two constitutional amendments on almost party line, 30-to-9 votes last summer. The senators passed these provisions with some cynicism on the part of some of the senators voting yes with the full knowledge from the Democrats that there were not enough votes in the Kansas House Of Representatives to have anything reining in the courts get to the voters for a constitutional referendum vote.

In sense, this is not surprising. Spending and spending measures are proliferating. Eminent domain reform and the Taxpayers Bill Of Rights are being throttled in committee, the government lobbyists are dominating the legislative process, and local units are likely to get more taxing authority in the form of additional sales taxes in the desire for “uniformity” that will help make the misnamed “streamline” sales tax more uniform during this year’s legislature.

It is sad to hear that so much of the “leadership” agenda seems to be driven by liberals in both parties setting out their goals for growing Kansas government.

By contrast, the Arizona, Florida, and Michigan legislatures are all looking at serious tax cutting legislation. Arizona is looking at $400 million in income and property tax cuts. In Topeka, the appraisal notices are going out this month and significant hikes in property that has not been improved are now being reported with double-digit percentage increases. Raising property taxes by the appraiser in an on-going process. The decline of Kansas continues.

Two excellent quotes from the senate debate over reining in the court was Sen. Kay O’Connor’s point that only about 25% of Kansans are Democrats but the closed process in Kansas has given us a Supreme Court where 5-out-of-7 judges are registered Democrats. This is the Sebelius court. Sen. Susan Wagle pointed out that a “cloud” of uncertainty created by the court’s spending edicts hangs over this state.

Sen. Terry Bruce pointed out that there are over 9,000 lawyers who get three votes on selecting the members who pick the three nominees for the Kansas Supreme Court. The other 2.7 million of us who are NOT lawyers only get our vote for governor. The governor selects four of the nine members of this commission that meets behind closed doors. Lawyers get to vote for one member in each congressional district that makes up four more members of this commission as well as the one member who is elected statewide. Lawyers make up 5 of the 9 members and in effect this branch is government by the lawyers, of the lawyers, and for the lawyers. Non lawyers in Kansas are officially second class citizens under this outrageous system.