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February 13 - 17, 2006

This week’s link:

TAKE ACTION!  To contact the members of the Committee and urge them to vote NO on SB 461, click here. You will be directed to an alert on the website of the Kansas Coalition for Workplace Safety.

Senate Commerce Committee continues to debate SB 461 – the disposable workers bill

Senate Bill 461, the disposable worker bill that is designed to deny workers compensation benefits to most Kansas workers, continues to be debated in the Senate Commerce Committee.

The bill contains two provisions that will effectively deny benefits to most Kansas workers:

• A “pre-existing conditions” proposal that would allow employers to count an employee’s age or weight as reasons to deny part or all of a claim, and
• A “capacity to earn” provision that allows your employer and insurance company to hire a consultant and, if that consultant determined that you could earn 90% of your pre-disability wages (that you have the “capacity to earn” 90% of your pre-disability wages), then you would get no benefits.

There are plenty of evils in this bill. And such “reform” ignores the fact that workers compensation premium rates for employers have been dropping – down by 2% last year alone – and that Kansas workers compensation insurance providers are making a profit. Kansas is one of only six states where the insurance providers are making a profit on workers compensation insurance. Kansas premiums and benefits are among the lowest in the United States.

This bill, sought by the Kansas Chamber of Commerce and Industry, is among the most anti-worker bills filed in the legislature.

Opponents of the bill include Kansas Fire Fighters, the Kansas State Nurses Association, the American Association of Retired Persons, Kansas NEA, and the Kansas AFL-CIO.

In a twist on family relationships, Doug Allen, brother of bill supporter Senator Karin Brownlee, testified against the bill. Allen was injured on the job and eventually had to hire an attorney to get medical treatment. Brownlee was quoted in the Topeka Capital-Journal as saying, “It’s extremely sad that the trial attorneys didn’t make sure that he got the health care he deserves.” Yet Allen was forced to rely on a trial attorney to get medical care! Click here to read the Capital-Journal account.

The Committee is expected to vote on the bill on Tuesday. TAKE ACTION!  To contact the members of the Committee and urge them to vote NO on SB 461, click here. You will be directed to an alert on the website of the Kansas Coalition for Workplace Safety.

Everybody’s talking about Higher Education!

House Higher Ed talks about expanding the state wide mill levy for the Regents…

The House Higher Education Committee held a hearing on HB 2745, a bill which would increase the state wide mill levy for higher education from one to four mills and require that two of the three additional mills be for building repair and one of the three for technology upgrades. Much has been made recently of the Regent’s inability to keep up with the increasing costs of maintaining our higher education facilities.

…then passes income tax surcharge to fund repairs to Regents campuses!

After the hearing on HB 2745, Rep. Bill Otto (R-LeRoy) offered an amendment that changed the funding to a 3.65% income tax surcharge. The bill passed out of the House Higher Education Committee on a 7-6 vote. It should be something to watch the floor debate on this one!

Senate Tax considers some limited tax authority for tech colleges

Senate Bill 311, heard in the Senate Taxation Committee, would allow tech colleges to levy a property tax for adult basic education. The bill applies immediately only to the Wichita Area Technical College and Flint Hills Technical College, allowing a current USD mill levy for adult basic education to be effectively transferred to the technical college.

Senators expressed concern about opening up another entity with the authority to levy local property taxes and suggested the bill might be the “nose under the tent.”

No action was taken on the bill.

House Fed and State Committee votes to kill repeal of immigrant tuition bill

In a surprise move the House Federal and State Affairs Committee brought up HB 2516 – the bill proposed by Rep. Becky Hutchins (R-Holton) to repeal in-state tuition for immigrant children. KNEA opposed this bill which would effectively deny higher education opportunities to high achieving Kansas high school graduates based on their parents’ immigration status.

A motion to move the bill out of committee with a favorable recommendation failed on a vote of 11-11 with Committee Chairman John Edmonds (R-Great Bend) casting the deciding vote. The vote had been 11-10 with the measure passing when Edmonds announced that the “Chair votes no.” A motion with a tie vote fails. A special thank you goes to Representative Edmonds whose vote preserves opportunity for many deserving young people.

Usually this action would mark the death of a bill but this is a highly charged issue and, at least in the past, Representative Hutchins has suggested she will take it to the floor. We’ll be watching for it to be attached to some other education or higher education bill during floor debate.

Senate Ed Committee hears technical changes to Regents issues

The Senate Education Committee turned its attention to two higher ed bills – SB 375 which deals with calculating salaries and SB 436 which separates community college personnel evaluation from k-12 personnel evaluation.

SB 375 eliminates a requirement on post-secondary institutions to pay KPERS for certain classes of employees who don’t receive KPERS benefits. They pay now because their wages are counted as part of total payroll. The bill was sought by the Regents through the Legislative Education Planning Committee.

SB 436 moves language about in the same statute but keeps the language intact. There are no changes to personnel evaluation. All the bill does is keep evaluations done by USDs in a separate section from evaluations done by community colleges.

House Tax considers limiting property tax appraisals

One of the perennial favorites was up for discussion in the House Taxation Committee. House Concurrent Resolution 5027 would cap property tax appraisals for tax purposes at no more than the consumer price index. This popular proposal is usually targeted for only retired persons but the current bill would apply to every Kansan.

The problem with such a bill is that it does nothing to help the taxpayer. The resulting decline in revenue from capped appraisals would result in one of two scenarios. Under one scenario, declining revenues are met with cuts to services from local governments – police, fire, libraries, schools, etc. But if local governments want to maintain services, they would have to raise mill levies. Either way, the citizens lose.

Testifying in favor of the proposal were Rep. Kathe Decker (R-Clay Center ), the author of the bill, the Clay County appraiser, a Johnson County business owner who also wanted the proposal expanded to include all real and personal property and to include a ban on increased mill levies, and anti-government, anti-tax lobbyist Karl Peterjohn. Testifying against the bill were Don Moller of the Kansas League of Municipalities and Mark Desetti of Kansas NEA. Desetti spoke on behalf of both KNEA and the Kansas Association of School Boards.

No action was taken on the bill.

House Select Committee begins deliberations on school finance

The House Select Committee on School Finance inquired about vocational programs in the state of Kansas from a representative of Kansas State Department of Education.  Representative DeCastro (R-Wichita) expressed disappointment in the fact that in school districts across the state many classes listed as vocational classes did not seem to be vocational in nature. This concern was echoed by Chairperson Kathe Decker (R-Clay Center ) who proposed leaving the current weightings in place but narrowing the field of what is a vocational course.  This was followed by Representative O’Neal who advocated returning to the original Augenblick and Myers Study proposal to delete the vocational weighting altogether. Chairman Decker stated that family and consumer science should be dropped from the vocational program listing for weighting purposes.

A representative of the Legislative Post Audit team described the research method used to determine the Vocational Weighting used in the LPA Report. Chairperson Kathe Decker (R-Clay Center ) stated that both Augenblick and Myers and the LPA report indicated a need to change the vocational weighting. She said that the LPA is conducting a study of costs of the expensive vocational programs around the state and that information would be available on Monday. Decker then directed the staff to look at courses that would truly be vocational classes and would mirror the courses in our vocational technical schools and to report back to the committee.

Senate Ed deliberates on…

…At-risk funding

The Senate Education Committee took up Senate Bill 509 which would change the distribution of at risk funds from its current basis of free lunch students to students below proficient on a math or reading assessment. It would also change at-risk funding from a weighting to a block grant.

KNEA lobbyist Mark Desetti spoke on behalf of the School Finance Coalition (Kansas National Education Association, Kansas Association of School Boards, United School Administrators, Schools for Quality Education, Schools for Fair Funding, Wichita Public Schools, Kansas City Kansas Public Schools, the Kansas Education Coalition, and Kansas Families United for Public Education) in opposing the block grant idea. Said Desetti, ”The establishment of a categorical fund would establish a finite amount of funds for at risk each year.” A block grant would create a situation not unlike the current special education funding problem. That is, the state would set an amount of money to be spent on at-risk programs and then have to prorate the reimbursement to school districts. Instead of paying actual costs for at-risk programs, the state would be sending a percentage of the costs.

Mark Tallman of the Kansas Association of School Boards then spoke on behalf of both KASB and KNEA in opposing the change from free lunch to students below proficient in reading and math. KASB and KNEA believe that the state could add students below proficient in reading and math to the calculation but must not eliminate the inclusion of free lunch students – a “free lunch PLUS” proposal. There is a strong correlation between poverty and at-risk status so KNEA and KASB support funding based on poverty. There are also young people who are not in poverty but exhibit at-risk behavior. For these reasons Kansas NEA would support funding both.

…Teacher scholarships

The Senate Education Committee scheduled a hearing on a brand new bill, SB 566 by Senators Derek Schmidt (R-Independence) and Dennis Wilson (R-Overland Park ), that would establish scholarships for holders of associate’s degrees wishing to pursue a BA and licensure as a special education teacher and licensed teachers wishing to pursue an advanced degree.

SB 566 would give many paraprofessionals the opportunity to complete a college education by supporting a “grow your own” type program. In addition, it would provide grants for current teachers to pursue a master’s degree. The program would be subject to appropriations which could put a limit on the number of participants or result in prorating the benefit.

KNEA testified in support of the concept but raised some concerns about specific parts of the bill. “One concern,” said KNEA lobbyist Mark Desetti, “is what would happen to the scholarship recipient who is caught in a reduction in force? If, for example, a scholarship recipient in a declining enrollment school district is laid off after three years of teaching, what obligation does the recipient have to repay the state? While some may have the ability to pick up and move, others may not.” SB 566 requires a 10 year teaching commitment while other teacher scholarship bills require only a three year commitment.

Senator Wilson suggested that this would attract and retain many teachers in Kansas. Desetti suggested that there were other ways to attract and retain teachers including higher salaries, good health benefits, support for new teachers, and quality professional development.

Bills to protect children pass the House

(But some still say NO!)

Several bills of interest to advocates for children have passed the House of Representatives and will now go to the Senate for consideration.

House Bill 2611 requiring children to be secured in seat belts in cars and specifying which children must be secured in booster seats passed the House on a vote of 90 – 29.

House Bill 2732 prohibiting unattended children from being left in a motor vehicle passed the House on a vote of 79 – 40.

House Bill 2541 changing the marriage age to no younger than 16 and requiring parental or court consent for marriage by 16 or 17 year olds passed on a vote of 121 – 1.

Representatives Anthony Brown (R-Eudora), Forrest Knox (R-Fredonia), Richard Carlson (R-St. Mary’s), Virgil Peck (R-Tyro), Steve Huebert (R-Valley Center), Bonnie Huy (R-Wichita), Kasha Kelly (R-Arkansas City), and Virginia Beamer (R-Oakley) went on record as opposed to mandatory seat belts and car seats for children as “another instance of government intrusion into the lives of families.” Huy, Kelly, and Sharon Schwartz (R-Washington) made the same argument to justify their opposition to the unattended and unsupervised children in motor vehicles safety act.

We were really curious as to why one representative – Bonnie Huy (R-Wichita) – would vote no on the marriage bill. Representative Huy went on record in explaining her vote. At her request, her remarks were printed in the House Journal for Valentine’s Day. Here is what she had to say after casting the lone NO vote on HB 2541:

“MR. SPEAKER: I’m somewhat conflicted by HB 2541. Although I do not embrace underage marriages, my youngest sister was married at 15 to a 23 year old with my mother’s unenthusiastic consent. They have raised five children and she and her husband just celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. Loretta Lynn was married at 13 with her parent’s consent to a much older man and remained married to him until his death. Many of these marriages do work out. Again government is interfering with the rights of parents to raise their children. After much thought and consideration, I vote no.”

This bill was proposed after it was discovered that a Nebraska man who might have been prosecuted for having engaged in sexual relations with a minor had escaped prosecution by coming to Kansas and getting married – a marriage that was not allowed under Nebraska law.

Retirement benefit increases get hearings

The House Retirement Subcommittee held hearings on five KPERS bills.

KNEA lobbyist Terry Forsyth testified in support of all five proposals:

• House Bill 2189 would increase the lump-sum death benefit from $4,000 to $5,000,
• House Bill 2191 would provide for a 3% COLA for those who retired before July 1^st 2004,  
• House Bill 2766 would provide a 2.5% COLA,
• House Bill 2430 would provide a one time $300 benefit payment, and
• House Bill 2892 which would increase the minimum check to those who retired before July 1^st 1971. This group receives the smallest benefit in the KPERS system. There are approximately 30 people in this group and their average age is 99.

To read any bill on line, go to the Kansas Legislative Service Web Page: http://www.ksLegislature.org/cgi-bin/index.cgi

Type in the bill number and click on “search.”

KNEA Legislative Contacts

Blake West, President
Mark Desetti, Director, Legislative and Political Advocacy
Terry Forsyth, Director, Political Action

The KNEA Lobby Team consists of elected leaders and staff. The Lobby Team welcomes member feedback on issues before the Legislature and on this site.