February 4th - February 8th
Legislative Update from the Office of
Representative Vickrey, Assistant Majority Leader
Week Four February 4th – February 8th
One month into the session and committees are hard at work. The House Energy and Utilities Committee heard testimony and were still working HB 2711 on Friday. Elections and Government Organizations Committee is gearing up for an important discussion on annexation. We anticipate many bills making their way to the House floor next week.
Missouri Lawmakers React to Kansas Tax bill
In reaction to passage of HB 2641 by the Kansas House, Missouri lawmakers hurried a tax repeal bill though their House chamber this week. The bill eliminates the property tax deduction for residents of any state that does not give Kansas residents the same deduction. As a result, Missouri Legislators have drafted an identical bill that would reestablish the deduction. This is a huge step toward our effort to ensure that Kansas taxpayers are treated fairly. I have already heard from people who live in my district that this will save them close to one hundred dollars on their taxes. They mentioned gratitude to both the House and Senate Tax Committee members for their work.
Energy
All eyes are on the House Energy and Utilities Committee this week as it works HB 2711, which allows for expansion of the Sunflower coal plant in Holcomb with and establishes new environmental regulations. Specifically the bill establishes a carbon tax emissions cap and net metering. They would be the first environmental regulations in the nation imposed at the state level which has created much concern. Speaker Neufeld formed a Select Committee on Energy and Environment for the Future earlier this week charged with establishing long-term energy policy. The Select Committee will be chaired by Representative Don Myers (R –Derby). As of Friday afternoon there continue to be developments concerning H.B. 2711, this promises to be an issue that has much debate through our session.
Explanation of Handouts:
Color map shows locations of power plant in Kansas.
The page with bar graph shows the CO 2 emissions of Kansas electric generation plants.
The 1st arrow is the proposed new coal fired plant in Holcomb.
The bar line to the left are all existing coal fired plants now operating in Kansas.
All the bar lines to the right are natural gas fired electric generation plants.
The two arrows are performance improvements for the proposed electric plant.
The New York Times article that explains the reason that electric rates are on the rise across the United States
Budget
Other than the energy bill, sound fiscal policy is the driving force this session. The budget committees are hard at work hearing agency requests. In this tough fiscal time, the best approach for these agencies is to find the money internally by taking a close look at how they have allocated budget dollars in the past and work to find ways to cut out wasteful spending and outdated or under-performing programs. The House Appropriations committee voted in favor of a set of guidelines for the FY 2009 budget. These guidelines call for the committees to eliminate from the Governor’s budget all but the required increases in State General Fund Spending to get a base to start work. This is includes proposed budget enhancements and has set aside the gaming revenues, which are in question at this time. This places even more strain on the State General Fund. Also included is support for the State Employee Pay Plan and the five year transition to a new state pay system.
See handout included: THE STATE FUND FY 2009 BUDGET OUTLOOK.
Bills
Sub for HB 2336, An act concerning sales taxation; relating to exemptions; food disaster emergencies; certain construction materials and services.
HB 2730, An act relating to public finance; creating the Kansas taxpayer transparency act; defining terms; requiring the secretary of administration to develop and operate a specified website; enumerating information which shall be made available on such website; establishing a time period covered for information on such website; establishing the public finance transparency board and prescribing its duties; and providing for nondisclosure of certain information.
HB 2495, An act concerning income taxation; relating to corporations; surtax.
HB 2774, An act concerning immigration; requiring the adjutant general to request certain information from the United States immigrations and customs enforcement and to establish communications with certain foreign countries.
HB 2775, An act concerning governmental ethics; requiring the reporting of lobbying expenses by municipalities.
HB 2777, An act concerning school districts; relating to school finance.
HB 2780, An act concerning criminal procedure; relating to conditional release.
Education Bills
HB 2604 would establish the Continuing Employment Inventive Grant Program. The bill would allow boards of education to establish a program through which the board would contribute up to $2,500 each school year to a retirement account for certain teachers who are endorsed to teach mathematics, science, or special education and who are eligible to retire. The board could apply for state funding to match the amounts contributed to the retirement accounts. State funds would be matched dollar-for-dollar, with a maximum $2,500 contribution by the state for each teacher per year. This bill had not yet had a hearing before the Education Committee.
HB 2605 would implement a linear transition for high-density at-risk weighting for school districts with a free lunch student percentage between 35.0 and 50.0 percent, with a maximum high-density at-risk weighting of 9.7 percent. This bill had a hearing before the Education Committee on January 31, 2008.
HB 2606 would change the catastrophic base amount for students who receive special education or related services from $25,000 to $36,000 for the 2008-2009 school year. In future years, the base amount would be increased by an amount equal to the percentage increase in the CPI-U index during the preceding school year, as certified to the State Board of Education by the Director of the Budget on August 15 of each year. This bill had a hearing before the Education Committee on January 23, 2008.
HB 2608 would establish procedures that address declining school district enrollment as a result of a qualified disaster. HB 2608 would determine an affected school district’s enrollment for use in computing the general fund budget of a district for the second, third and fourth school years following the school year when the disaster took place. The bill defines disaster as the occurrence of widespread or severe damage, injury or loss of life or property resulting from any natural or manmade cause, such as fire, flood, earthquake, tornado, wind, storm, drought, epidemic, air contamination, blight, infestation or explosion and the result of such disaster. This bill had a hearing before the Education Committee on February 5, 2008.
Contact Information
To reach me, please contact my office assistant, Maureen (she always knows how to find me) by phone at (785-296-6014), by US Mail at (Rm 121-W Statehouse, Topeka, KS 66612) or by email at (vickrey@jenevickrey.org) during the Legislative Session.