Voice For Liberty

Tag: Wichita and Kansas schools

  • Gambling for education

    In a free society dedicated to personal liberty, people should be able to gamble.

    With gambling, though, there are fairly predictable costs that arise. Because of the variety of social services that our government provides, many of these costs are borne by the public as a whole. In other words, allowing people the freedom to gamble also means that many others must pay to clean up the mess that some will make of their lives. This cost outweighs the benefit of the freedom to gamble. If we could isolate the harm that problem gamblers cause so that everyone else wouldn’t have to pay to fix it, that would be a different matter.

    Even if we could isolate the harm from gambling to those who choose to gamble, innocent victims are harmed — the children of pathological gamblers, for example.

    Those who wish to gamble should be able to do so, then, if the harm the problem gamblers cause can be contained. But our state provides so many social services that containing the cost is likely impossible.

    If we are to allow gambling in Kansas, we should not tax it in the way being proposed. Why? If casinos in Kansas are successful, they will generate a lot of tax revenue. The government becomes dependent on that tax revenue, and thereby forms a de facto partnership with the casinos. It will be in the state’s interest to have more gambling. The state will likely advertise and promote the casinos, just as it advertises and promotes the Kansas lottery.

    We should also keep in mind that the amount it seems like casinos might generate ($150 million per year is a figure I often hear) is a relatively small amount. Kansas tax revenue for fiscal 2005 was $4,632.5 million, so revenue from casino taxes might be about 3.2% of total Kansas tax revenue. But the real percentage is even less, as total spending by the state that year was over $10,813 million, so the amount raised from gambling is less than 1.4% of Kansas total spending. The incremental gain — what really matters — is even less, as much if not all of the money spent gambling is money that would have been spent elsewhere, likely generating tax revenue for the state there.

    Of course, this money is for the children, as casino advocates say. We must have casino gambling so that our children can be properly educated, they say. But money is fungible. To say that money arising from a specific source only benefits a given cause is illusory. It makes as much sense as saying the money I earn on Monday and Tuesday goes to the mortgage payment, the money earned on Wednesday for food, Thursday for retirement, etc.

    So the real question, then, is do we want to unleash on this state the problems of casino gambling for the vanishingly small benefits it may bring? That is, if we can somehow control and contain its social costs? For me, the answer is “no.”

    Some Research on Gambling

    If you are interested, a good article to read is an excerpt from The Business-Economic Impacts of Licensed Casino Gambling in West Virginia: Short-Term Gain but Long-Term Pain. Some quotes:

    From a business-economic perspective, the main issue involved in legalizing various forms of gambling is whether gambling activities constitute a valid strategy for economic development. While the dollars invested in various legalized gambling projects and the jobs initially created are evident, the industry has been criticized for inflating the positive economic impacts and trivializing or ignoring the negative impacts (Goodman 1994). The industry’s tendency to focus on specialized factors provides a distorted view of the localized economic positives, while ignoring the strategic business-economic costs to the state as a whole (such as West Virginia) and to different regions of the United States (California Governor’s Office 1992, Kindt 1995). In 1994, all of the various experts who testified before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Small Business criticized the impacts that casino-style gambling activities inflict upon the criminal justice system, the social welfare, system, small businesses, and the economy (Congressional Hearing 1994). Utilizing legalized gambling activities as a strategy for economic development was thoroughly discredited during the hearing.

    In recent economic history, legalized gambling activities have been directly and indirectly subsidized by the taxpayers. The field research throughout the nation indicates that for every dollar the legalized gambling interests indicate is being contributed in taxes, it usually costs the taxpayers at least 3 dollars– and higher numbers have been calculated (Politzer, Morrow and Leavey 1981; Better Government Association 1992; Florida Budget Office 1994). These costs to taxpayers are reflected in: (1) infrastructure costs, (2) relatively high regulatory costs, (3) expenses to the criminal justice system, and (4) large social-welfare costs (Illinois Governor’s Office 1992). Accordingly, several state legislators (e.g., in South Dakota) have called for at least partially internalizing these external costs by taxing all legalized gambling activities at a straight 50 percent tax rate.

    Specifically regarding education, which is a driving force for considering gambling at this moment.

    Gambling activities and the gambling philosophy are directly opposed to sound business principles and economic development. Legalized gambling activities also negatively affect education– both philosophically and fiscally (Better Government Association 1992; Clotfelter and Cook 1989). Adherence to a philosophy of making a living via gambling activities not only abrogates the perceived need for an education, but also reinforces economically unproductive activities (and is statistically impossible since the “house” always wins eventually). In states with legalized gambling activities which were initiated allegedly to bolster tax revenues to “education,” the funding in “real dollars” has almost uniformly decreased.

    From the conclusion:

    Increasingly, taxpayers and businesses are beginning to realize that, as Professor Jack Van Der Slik has summarized for much of the academic community, state-sponsored gambling “produces no product, no new wealth, and so it makes no genuine contribution to economic development” (Van Der Slik 1990). Business-economic history supports this proposition. The recriminalization of gambling activities occurred 100 years ago after a brief gambling boom following the Civil War. Most state legislatures utilized constitutional provisions to recriminalize gambling, because lawmakers wanted to make it as difficult as possible for future generations to experiment with the classic “boom and bust” cycles and the concomitant socioeconomic negatives occasioned by legalized gambling activities. To paraphrase Georg Hegel’s common quote, “those who forget the lessons of economic history are condemned to relive them” (Bartlett 1968).

    Even the supporters of gambling concede there are social costs. In a report prepared for the Wichita Downtown Development Corporation and avaible to read by clicking here, we read: “At a cost of $13,586 in social costs for each [pathological gambler], the annual burden on the community could range between $71 and $106 million.” Of course, these costs are offset by benefits, the study says. These costs are not just dollar costs, however. They are human costs paid in suffering, often by innocent family members of the problem gamblers.

    Politicians’ Confusing Attitudes Towards Gambling

    The attitude of some politicians is quite confusing. For example, as reported in The Wichita Eagle on June 16, 2005, regarding Senator Donald Betts:

    Sen. Donald Betts, a Wichita Democrat, said he is aware of gambling’s social impact, having grown up in Las Vegas.

    “Beyond the neon, there was a grim reality of what gambling does to a community,” he said.

    Still, he said, he likely would support a gambling bill if it is brought up next week.

    “In my district, I believe it’s a lot better choice than increasing taxes,” Betts said. “My constituents are calling me and asking me, when are we going to get the casinos?”

    (If I were as clever as Rush Limbaugh, I suppose I might make some crack about what a guy named Betts thinks about gambling.)

    There are other examples of politicians saying they know there is a downside to gambling, but we’re going to have it anyway, they say.

  • Report from Topeka, June 22, 2005

    Here’s a report on the special session of the Kansas Legislature from Karl Peterjohn, Executive Director of the Kansas Taxpayers Network. Thanks to Karl for his fine reporting and commentary.

    Here’s the start of a blog for KTN and any other quality Kansas sites interested in this state’s fiscal crisis thanks to our left-wing, prejudiced Kansas supreme court. For the details on the court’s conflicts of interest see the recent KTN editorial column discussing Justice Nuss and Justice Allegrucci’s need to recuse themselves in the school finance litigation.

    The house is likely done for the day (June 22) with all eyes watching efforts to put together a bill that would raise state school spending beyond the $143 million sought by the court and try and turn Kansas into a state with franchise casinos dotting the state. Kansas would be the only state that I know of where the casinos would be “owned” by the state and then contracted out to operators.

    In theory there is a one subject limitation on any bills but once the court threw the rule book out the window it seems like anything goes and this bill could have gambling, appropriations, and new plumbing for the judicial center (tongue-in-cheek on last item) combined into one fat piece of legislation.

    What makes this special session unique is the remodeling of the statehouse has forced the Kansas senate into meeting in the third floor chambers that once upon a time belonged to the Kansas Supreme Court. I jokingly asked if black robes were being issued to each senator. It is standing room only inside the chamber with senate leaders seated like judges at the front of the room and the backbench senators seated at a table in front of their leaders.

    This is quite a change from the usual senatorial operations at the statehouse. It does seem appropriate in an era of judicial edicts setting and perhaps even determining the legislative outcome. First we have a bunch of black robed judges behaving like legislators. Now we have the Kansas senate meeting in the Old Supreme Court Chamber.

    There seems to be a determination on the part of the liberal senators in both parties that a spending package of expanded gaming and reduced cash balances will allow them to expand spending according to the order from the court. Some senators want to expand the spending well beyond the court’s edict. I guess that will show them that they are not subservient to their judicial masters!

    House members as a whole are not nearly as submissive as the senate. However, it is not clear what will be offered in the way of constitutional amendments to stick it to the court and defend the legislature’s constitutional and historic powers. The problem is that any amendment needs 27 senate votes and 84 house votes to be sent to the voters. that is a very difficult threshold to cross. There are hallway discussions on statutory provisions that would make it more difficult for the court to continue to meddle in legislative matters. Sadly, all too many legislators appear ready willing and able to submit to whatever nonsense the court ordered June 3 and could order in the future.

    The school spending lobby held a rally this morning but the statehouse was ready for an anti-judicial tyrrany rally over the lunch hour. Elsewhere in the statehouse it looked like it was spend and fritter the taxpayers money away as usual. More details in an upcoming post.

    Nationally, the Wall Street Journal editorial page has an editorial today entitled, “Jayhawk Judgment,” and sub-titled, “A constitutional showdown oer the power to tax.” It is excellent and I recommend it highly. Here are a couple of fair use quotes from it: “…under the Constitution’s separation of powers doctrine, the legislative branch makes the laws and the judicial branch interprets them. No so in Kansas these days. There the state Supreme Court has commanded that the legislature must increase spending on the schools, as well as the taxes to pay for it, by precisely $853 million over the next two years.” Later it says, “The legislature is sworn to abide by the Kansas Constitution, but that doesn’t mean abandoning its own powers of the purse to an unelected judiciary. This is a showdown between the branches of government, and the legislature has every right to protect its own constitutional prerogatives from judicial intrusion. In this case that means protecting Kansans from judicially ordered, and thus unconstitutional, tax increase.”

    This is a national warning that any business looking to locate or expand in Kansas with our runaway courts and unlimited tax and spend policies would be crazy. Our neighbors will benefit from our spendthrift legacy. In fact there is vivid evidence of this legacy.

    It is interesting to note that an important and largely unknown former Kansan died yesterday. The inventor of the integrated circuit chip Jack Kilby, originally from Great Bend, died at 81. This 2000 Nobel Laureate is an excellent example of a former Kansan who grew up here and moved elsewhere, like to Texas as in Texas Instruments to pursue his career. We graduate a lot of Jack Kilby’s from Kansas who return as regular “Kansas tourists” visiting family and friends over a week in summer or during the holiday season at Thanksgiving and Christmas. This is part of the price Kansas pays for being a high tax and big government state that regularly stifles entrepreneurship with the highest business property taxes and high corporate income taxes that were strongly criticized by Scott Hodges, the head of the Tax Foundation, at a Topeka forum June 14. Our property, income, sales, and excise taxes are lousy too. See other parts of KTN’s web site: www.kansastaxpayers.com for details.

  • How children lose in the Kansas Legislature’s special session

    USD 259 (Wichita) public schools superintendent Winston Brooks plans to use the majority of the anticipated increase in school funding to reduce class size. Evidence cited in other articles on this website show that smaller class sizes don’t produce better educational outcomes for students.

    Because the conventional wisdom is that smaller class sizes are good for students, the extra money and smaller class sizes will be saluted as a victory for the children. Editorial writers, school administrators, teachers, and those who don’t care to confront facts will thank the Kansas Supreme Court and Kansas Legislature for saving the children.

    The sad fact is that this seeming victory, a victory which does nothing to help children, will delay desperately needed reform for another year. In all likelihood reform will be delayed even longer, as if the legislature accedes to the court’s demand this year, it may also do so next year, when the court has called for even more spending.

    Who benefits from smaller class size? The teachers unions do. Smaller class sizes mean a lighter workload for current teachers. More teachers (paying more union dues) need to be hired, as is the plan in Wichita.

    But as mentioned earlier, smaller class size doesn’t help the students. That’s the danger in spending more on schools. It seems like the additional money should help the schools, and those who procure the money are treated as heroes. This illusion of a solution delays the reform that is badly needed.

    What would truly help children? Overwhelming evidence points to school choice. As Harvard economist and researcher Caroline M. Hoxby said about the school voucher program in Milwaukee:

    From 1998-1999 onwards, the schools that faced the most competition from the vouchers improved student achievement radically–by about 0.6 of a standard deviation each year. That is an enormous, almost unheard-of, improvement. Keep in mind the schools in question had had a long history of low achievement. Yet they were able to get their act together quickly. The most threatened schools improved the most, not only compared to other schools in Milwaukee but also compared to other schools in the state of Wisconsin that served poor, urban students.

    Milwaukee shows what public school administrators can tell you: Schools can improve if they are under serious competition.

    Why, then, don’t we have school choice in Wichita? The teachers unions and education establishment are against it. They don’t want to face the same type of free market forces that the rest of us face. They are in charge of educating children, they tell us they are doing the best they can, that everything they do is for the children and only the children, but they oppose desperately needed reform.

  • Regarding School Finance from Senator Karin Brownlee

    By Senator Karin Brownlee, Republican from Olathe

    What is the higher priority? Should the Legislature send $143 million more to schools or preserve the form of government our forefathers carefully designed over two hundred years ago? The separation of powers doctrine is fundamental to maintaining our free society because it maintains a balance of powers with the judiciary unable to control the budget. That is until last Friday when the Kansas Supreme Court blurred the lines and came out with a ruling that the Kansas Legislature should appropriate an additional $143 million to the K-12 schools, for starters. The Court expects $568 million more after that.

    A few school districts in Kansas sued the state because of their perception that the state is under funding them. This suit worked its way through the Kansas courts to the point that the state Supreme Court in January mandated the Legislature to address some specific areas to ensure an equal education for all Kansas students. The Legislature responded by voting to send an additional $142 million to our schools with some of the additions targeting the specific needs. This is the largest increase to schools since 1992. Out of our $4.9 billion budget, about $2.6 billion will go to schools in ’05-’06.

    The school lobby in the Kansas Capitol is possibly the strongest lobby under the dome. I have seen bills pass initially one day only to get squished like a bug the next day on a final vote because the Kansas Association of School Boards (KASB) and the Kansas National Education Association (KNEA) deemed the bill a threat to their way of life. Because of the strength of this lobby, it is hard to sort fact from fiction when discussing school finance.

    You have probably heard that the base state aid per pupil (BSAPP) has not kept up with inflation. What are the facts? BSAPP is only one part of the school funding formula and there isn’t a district in the state that only receives this amount. It is always multiplied by weighting factors which increases this number significantly. Since the school funding formula was rewritten in 1992, state, local and federal funds increases for K-12 have surpassed the consumer price index (CPI) every year. Kansas spends about 54% of its state budget on our schools. On average, other states spend about 35% of their state budgets on K-12. The next time someone tries to convince you that the Legislature is shortchanging our schools, you might keep these facts in mind.

    Additionally, Kansas students perform quite well when compared to students in other states. Over the past few years, our schools have ranked in the top ten states in many categories. In some areas on nationalized tests, our students are ranked even higher. Lack of quality is not driving the push for millions more to schools.

    I write all of this to make the point that the true need may not be the hundreds of millions of dollars that the state Supreme Court is mandating. Certainly our schools would make use of any money sent their way. However, the need for balance in state spending is critical to maintain a positive climate for families and businesses. Frankly, this struggle is no longer about school funding. The greater need is to maintain the balance of powers and not allow a court to tell the Legislature who gets how much money. That is the exclusive duty of the Kansas Legislature.

  • Base School funding on research, not feelings

    On the surface, it would seem like smaller class sizes would produce better educational outcomes. Intuitively, this makes sense.

    Research tells a different story, however. Research by Harvard economist Caroline M. Hoxby titled “The effects of class size on student achievement: New evidence from population variation”, The Quarterly Journal of Economics 115 :4 (2000), 1239-1285, which can be read here: http://www.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/hoxby/papers/effects.pdf makes a different conclusion. Some quotes from the study:

    I identify the effects of class size on student achievement using longitudinal variation in the population associated with each grade in 649 elementary schools. I use variation in class size driven by idiosyncratic variation in the population. I also use discrete jumps in class size that occur when a small change in enrollment triggers a maximum or minimum class size rule. The estimates indicate that class size does not have a statistically significant effect on student achievement. I rule out even modest effects (2 to 4 percent of a standard deviation in scores for a 10 percent reduction in class size).

    Using both methods, I find that reductions in class size have no effect on student achievement. The estimates are sufficiently precise that, if a 10 percent reduction in class size improved achievement by just 2 to 4 percent of a standard deviation, I would have found statistically significant effects in math, reading, and writing. I find no evidence that class size reductions are more efficacious in schools that contain high concentrations of low income students or African-American students.

    As we in Wichita and Kansas prepare to make important decisions on school funding, let’s use research, not feelings, to make informed and rational decisions.

  • Disgraceful decision will hurt Kansas

    This is a reprise of a January 10, 2005 column, which is worthwhile to read again.

    Disgraceful Decision Will Hurt Kansas
    by Karl Peterjohn, Executive Director, Kansas Taxpayers Network

    The Kansas Supreme Court’s school finance decision is deeply flawed both in substance and in procedure. This five page judicial edict (www.kscourts.org see case no. 92,032) announced January 3 is designed to pressure the legislature into voting for more spending for public schools without saying by how much. Many tax and spend advocates are now claiming the court is requiring a tax hike, but no such specific language is contained within this decision.

    This claim is supposedly based upon language contained within the Kansas Constitution and various statutes enacted in Kansas. This Constitution itself is unchanged since the 1994 Kansas Supreme Court decision that said the school finance system was constitutional. At that time, state school spending was almost $700 million a year less than it is today. This decision is inconsistent with the 1994 case and the school spending facts between 1994 and now.

    Neither this legal edict or any language within our state constitution suggests whether increased school spending of four percent or fourteen percent or forty four percent more will make anything constitutional. The only positive for Kansas taxpayers in this ruling was the court’s decision to keep this case out of judicial activist Terry Bullock’s courtroom and Bullock’s explicit billion dollar spending and tax edict.

    Plaintiff and trial attorneys for the school districts that brought this lawsuit are already claiming that a billion dollars in additional state spending is required. The leading plaintiff attorney is Alan Rupe who has been involved in all of the school finance lawsuits in Kansas going back to the 1980’s and has been repeating this claim. Ironically, the Augenblick and Myer study (A&M) that the plaintiffs rely upon in their lawsuit uses a much smaller figure. The actual A&M report, which is often discussed but seldom actually quoted says, “we are suggesting that total (public school) spending needs to increase by $229 million,” (page ES-4).

    So the court came up with a judicial edict that said state spending on public schools was inadequate without saying by how much. The court went on to say that some unspecified increase in spending might not be enough to make it constitutional either. This is a strong indication on how the rule of law in Kansas is being replaced by the rule of a new super-legislature that consists of seven black robed lawyers. It is interesting to note that 57 percent of this court/super legislature, or more than twice the statewide average of 26.8 percent of registered voters in Kansas, are registered Democrats according to a check of public records.

    The Kansas Supreme Court managed to come up with this ruling despite a lack of evidence in any of this litigation that Kansas spends less per pupil on public schools than our neighboring states. In fact, anyone who wants to check the federal government’s figures will see that Kansas spends more than our surrounding states despite having lower income than the national average. In some of these surveys Nebraska is ranked as spending as much or slightly more than Kansas but all of the other neighboring states get by with much less government school spending. A couple of days after this decision was released a national survey by Education Week confirmed that the government school system in Kansas is adequately funded. Kansas received a “B” grade on this scorecard for funding (see www.edweek.org).

    A few days earlier the latest state data came out showing that Kansas’ average spending grew 3.8 percent in 2003-04 or $341 per pupil to average of $9,235. In 2004-05 the schools have budgeted school spending to grow by 10 percent, breaking the $10,000 per pupil mark. The average per pupil (FTE) in Kansas will have $10,162 spent during 2004-05 according to this most recent Kansas public school budget data.

    However, the court’s unsigned and non-final edict lacked many of the important characteristics of judicial rulings. This edict was unsigned by anyone and news articles claim that such an edict must be unanimous to be issued this way by the court. Of course, this is not guaranteed as a final decision either. So this decision is vague concerning the state’s constitutional language and leaves important legal issues unspecified beyond a general decision that more spending is required with the court positioning itself to second guess the legislature’s after first adjournment and April 12.

    Last month the court was narrowly and bitterly divided when it overruled its own 2001 decision by a 4-to-3 margin on the constitutionality of the Kansas death penalty. At least in that decision, Kansans were able to find out where the judges actually stood and there was a signed opinion.

    In theory Kansas voters are supposed to have a say on judicial positions. However, since judicial retention elections were established in 1958 in Kansas, not a single appellate or supreme court member has ever lost their position after a retention election. These judicial appointments are almost as good as getting an explicitly lifetime federal judicial appointment. The pay and pension perks are similar and only slightly smaller too. Four of the Kansas Supreme Court judges had judicial retention votes in 2004 and will continue on the court for terms for at least six more years assuming that none resign or leave the court for other reasons.

    The basis for this government school finance decision is the court’s vague position on what this constitutional language, “The legislature shall make suitable provision for finance of the educational interests of the state,” means. It is very clear that the Kansas Constitution does not mean that the judiciary system in Kansas should try to make a mess out of Kansas schools like federal judge Clark did in the Kansas City, Missouri school system beginning in the 1980’s and that continued for years.

  • Ethics Require Two Recusals In School Finance Lawsuit

    Thank you to Karl Peterjohn for your insight into the ethical mess that is our Kansas Supreme Court.

    Ethics Require Two Recusals In School Finance Lawsuit
    By Karl Peterjohn, Executive Director Kansas Taxpayers Network

    Would you want to go to court and face a judge who used to serve as legal counsel for your courtroom opponent? That is one of the ethics challenges facing the state in trying to fight off the $1 billion school finance lawsuit in front of the Kansas Supreme Court. This court heard oral arguments again May 11 in this case. There are 15 school districts spending millions of dollars promoting this lengthy lawsuit against the state and its taxpayers.

    In addition to this ethical challenge is the fact that the governor’s chief of staff is married to another judge on the Kansas Supreme Court. Would you like to go to court after being sued and face a judge whose spouse is the chief of staff to the person who is leading the challenge against you?

    Governor Sebelius has been vocal in blasting the legislature’s very expensive increase of $140 million in state spending for public schools during this year’s legislative session. Sebelius said this massive spending hike was inadequate.

    The governor did play Hamlet by not signing or vetoing the school finance bill into law and sending it to the Kansas Supreme Court. Governor Sebelius issued a news release blasting the legislature for being excessively stingy in raising spending for public schools and joined the 15 school districts in advocating higher taxes and spending.

    The irony is the fact that the legislature’s spending increase was the largest annual increase during the Sebelius administration. Other legislators said that the $140 million increase was the largest this century. This was certainly one of the largest spending hikes since the current formula was created in 1992.

    If you were being sued, and as a taxpayer you are, would you like to face Justice Lawton Nuss, who used to represent your legal challenger, and Justice Don Allegrucci, whose wife is the governor’s chief of staff in this $1 billion case being heard in the Kansas Supreme Court? Nuss was in the law firm that represents the lead plaintiff, the Salina public school district, until he joined the court in October 2002.

    Since Justice Gernon’s April death there are now only six members of this court. Two of these judges need to recuse themselves for ethics problems unless we want Kansas legal ethics to become an oxymoron.

    School district attorney Alan Rupe has criticized these ethical issues as being “ridiculous.” He has also publicly discussed the fact that this lawsuit involves him suing his ex-wife Carol Rupe who is one of the members of the state board of education. Litigation involving ex-spouses, former law firms, and high level state colleagues is not the way to resolve important public policy issues like Kansas school finance.

    The average Kansan is not familiar with the judicial canon that says, “A judge shall not allow family, social, political, or other relationships to influence the judge’s judicial conduct or judgment.” This second canon also says that judges shall, “act at all times in a manner that promotes public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary.” The average Kansan does know right from wrong and having judges with ties to one side of a lawsuit is an insult to fairness and will lead to a tainted decision if these judges participate. In fact, the court’s January 3, 2005 is already tainted by these two judges’ participation in that preliminary decision in the school finance lawsuit.

    The school districts are now using lawsuits to try and raise taxes instead of going through the legislature to raise taxes like everyone else. This has created the odious position that the taxpayer funded school districts are using tax funds to sue the state that is using tax funds to defend itself. The only guarantee in this case is that taxpayers will be the loser. If the judges who are not in compliance with their own judicial ethics rules continue in this case, the result will be a travesty of justice and a black eye for the entire legal profession in this state.

  • Kansas Attorney General Has it Right

    TOPEKA — Alan Cobb, director of the Kansas chapter of the Americans for Prosperity Foundation, today released the following statement in response to the briefs filed in the State vs. Montoy case currently before the Kansas Supreme Court:

    “As questions and concerns swirl about whether or not the Kansas Supreme Court can order a statewide tax increase, we applaud Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline for putting this issue to rest.

    In a brief filed yesterday with the court and in response to questions from reporters, AG Kline said clearly that the Kansas Supreme Court does not have the authority to impose taxes or raises the current level of taxation.

    From the summary of the brief filed by the Attorney General:

    “The Kansas Constitution Prohibits the Supreme Court from Raising Taxes and Prohibits any Expenditure from the State General Fund from Occurring Unless Authorized by Laws Passed by the Legislature.” (emphasis added)

    The bottom line is that the Legislature has the responsibility to tax and to fund schools appropriately. They’ve met that burden.

    The Kansas Legislature and the Attorney General understand that our state’s taxpayers suffer the 15th worst state and local tax burden in the nation as a percentage of income. That’s an even heavier tax burden than citizens in the notoriously high-tax states of California and Massachusetts must carry! Also, our ranking this year is twice as bad as it was 20 years ago, when we ranked a much better 31st.

    “The short-term solution to over-taxation in Kansas is for the legislature to continue rejecting any and all proposed tax increases, and the long-term solution is the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights. If Kansas had implemented a Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights in 1992, taxpayers would have received $1.1 billion in tax rebates and reductions and we would have squirreled away $1.4 billion in Rainy Day funds that would have offset the budget shortfalls that occurred during the recent economic downturn. And Kansas taxpayers would have a little more money in their pockets as they file their taxes this week.”

  • Tax funds finance Kansas school finance lawsuit

    Contributed by Kansas Taxpayers Network

    By Karl Peterjohn

    There might not be funds for public school classrooms but for 15 Kansas school districts there is money for financing lawsuits. Since the 1998-99 school year, $2,095,020 has been spent in public funds to pay for the school finance litigation and lawsuit.

    This outrage is a classic case of the school districts biting the state’s hand that fed the 300 Kansas school districts with over $2.7 billion in state funds. Of course, the state does not have any money that it has not taken from taxpayers so you and I pay our taxes to the schools and to the state paying for both the plaintiffs and defendants in this legal battle.

    A portion of that money is taken by these school districts and then used to sue for more spending that will require higher taxes. Sadly, Kansas already has the highest property taxes on business in our five state region as well as the second highest taxes on homeowners too so this litigation worsens our tax climate.

    This is not a new event. The school finance lawsuits stretch back into the late 1980’s. The lead attorney on the most recent lawsuit, Alan Rupe, has been involved in all of these cases going back to the 1980’s. The 15 school districts misusing their tax funds to finance these lawsuits are led by the Salina and Dodge City public schools. The other school districts financing this litigation are: Arkansas City, Augusta, Derby, El Dorado, Emporia, Fort Scott, Great Bend, Hays, Independence, Leavenworth, Manhattan, Newton, and Winfield (For a listing of the tax dollars spent for these lawsuits between 1998-to-2005 see www.kansastaxpayers.com).

    If the legislative conservatives were serious about addressing the litigation crisis in Kansas public schools these expenditures would be stopped. This misuse of tax funds for trial attorneys should stop immediately. Any school finance legislation passed by the Kansas legislature that does not address this abuse of taxpayer funds is a disgrace.

    Last year the Topeka public schools faced a financial scandal when it was revealed that roughly $1/2 million had been paid to pay fraudulent checks in central Asia. The schools had such lax financial controls that numerous bogus checks got paid. The schools continued to operate despite this long distance financial flim-flam. Sadly, the mainstream Kansas press outside of Topeka has largely ignored this scandal and treated it as an isolated event.

    This is another indication that there are plenty of funds available for financing Kansas public schools. The latest federal data indicate that Kansans, despite having lower than average incomes, are paying substantially more than the national average for our public schools. Kansans are paying more per pupil than for public schools in our neighboring states too. Higher expenditures mean higher taxes. Being a high tax state is one of the reasons that Kansas has suffered the largest reduction in private sector jobs during this century according to federal data.

    If the school districts can continue to litigate their way to higher taxes and spending by misusing tax dollars, the future of this state will be grim. Lawsuits promoting higher government spending and higher taxes will drive jobs and businesses to taxpayer friendlier states.