Turnaround Day comes Saturday at the Capitol. House Committees have brought a large amount of legislation to the House floor in anticipation of that deadline. This week the House had a flood of bills to consider including legislation on medical clinic inspections, DNA acquisition during booking, closing of old workman’s compensation claims, ignition interlock devices for repeat D.U.I. offenders, strengthening sentences for sex offenders. The first bill introduced concerning school finance will be heard next week in the House Education Committee. I was disappointed that the bill overlooks many of the recommendations made by Legislative Post Audit and does not add enough money into the base state aid per pupil.

School Finance

More details have emerged on the anticipated school finance plan being drafted by the House. In my opinion, the new plan addresses few concerns identified in the Legislative Post Audit (L.P.A.) Report and does not address key directives of the lawsuit concerning school finance. Some of the main points of the proposed plan include:

-Providing approximately $500 million in additional school funding which will be phased in over three years.

-Year one of the plan includes $175 million in additional monies and sets aside $500,000 for teachers who wish to become certified under English as a Second Language (ESL).

-The second and third years of the plan would distribute an additional $325 million and seeks to target poverty and at-risk students as identified by the (L.P.A.) study.

-School districts will be responsible for determining their own budgets based on a needs assessment and specifying priorities within that budget. Each district will be required to make specific reports on their budget to the Kansas Board of Education.

-Failure by any school to meet Annual Yearly Progress (A.Y.P.) in the first year will be examined by the Kansas Board of Education and the school will be required to reallocate it’s resources in the following year(s) to address problem areas. A failure to meet A.Y.P. in subsequent years will be addressed with increasing intervention by state education officials.

-The A.Y.P. penalizes higher achieving schools such as our Miami County Schools.

-Base aid per pupil will only increase by $50.

-In large part due to no change the formula for low enrollment districts even though identified again by the L.P.A. as a weighting that has no basis in cost study for the weighting for school districts with enrollment above 300 students.  We need to work on a formula based on true costs as recommended in the L.P.A. study, not just adding more money to the current formula.

-No Cost of Living Weighting recognized by the L.P.A.

-Adding a new weighting for at risk for schools with 212.2 students per sq. mile could be another obstacle to a new formula.

Felons to Submit DNA

It is surprising to find out that under current law many unsolved crimes have abundant DNA evidence that cannot be linked to the perpetrator. HB 2554 would require anyone arrested and booked for a felony, including a D.U.I. to provide an oral swab of their DNA. The DNA would then be examined to identify 13 neutral points that do not indicate any personal medical DNA but can be processed against DNA already in criminal databases. The DNA would be used for identification purposes only and would be destroyed if the person was acquitted of the crime for which they were accused. Today it is almost impossible when violent felonies are committed that there is not at least some DNA evidence behind and this method of investigation will help law enforcement match that evidence to a criminal who is arrested for a different crime in the future.

D.U.I. Ignition Interlocks

People who are arrested and convicted of more than one D.U.I. would now be required to show proof of the installation of an ignition interlock system before their driving privileges are restored. An ignition interlock is a device that prevents the car from being started by an intoxicated driver, normally by a breath testing device attached to the steering column. HB 2916 is set for Final Action on Friday.

Workman’s Compensation

HB 2753

would allow administrative law judges (A.L.J.), at their discretion, to close workman's compensation claims that are over five years old due to lack of prosecution. If a case has failed to move to a final hearing, settlement hearing, or an agreed award under the Workman's Compensation Act within five years, the judge may choose to close the case or grant an extension for good cause shown

Gift Certificates

Most of us have been given a gift certificate on one occasion or another. Some of us have also gone to redeem that certificate only to find out that it’s not worth the value it was originally purchased for. Retailers issuing these certificates and cards, in order to reduce accounting problems, chose to charge a small administrative fee which served to eliminate the outstanding balance from their books if the gift certificate wasn’t used in a predetermined amount of time. Others apply an expiration date to the card. Consumers, on the other hand, like to know that when they are given a gift certificate for $20, that when they attempt to redeem it, it will still be worth $20, no matter how long it may take them to do so.

Penalties for Sex Offenders

House Bill 2576

would enact a penalty of life without the possibility of parole for aggravated persistent sex offenders. Among other penalties, a person convicted of three sexually violent crimes would face a penalty of 25 years to life for their first offense, 50 years to life for a second offense, and life without parole for a third offense. The bill was heavily amended in Committee which created numerous topics for debate on the floor.

Medical Clinic Inspections

Originally introduced as a bill requiring inspection of medical clinics, House Bill 2829 was amended in the Health and Human Services Committee to only apply to the inspection and licensure of abortion clinics. After emotional debate on the House floor, the bill was amended to reflect its original form and require regulation of clinics and facilities where office-based surgeries and special procedures are performed. The reason that I voted against the bill is that it establishes regulation of office-based surgery and other special medical procedures performed at physician clinics. The Kansas Board of Healing Arts already achieves patient safety and quality without this duplication. This is not cost-effective at a time when medical costs are growing a lot faster than the rate of inflation. Patient safety in the non-hospital surgical settings of abortion clinics need to include regulations of basic cleanliness, safety, and sanitation standards. This bill offers a way for abortion clinics to opt out from these inspections. Final action on the bill occurred Thursday and the bill passed by the narrowest margin, 63-62.

 

How To Contact Me

If you have any additional information or if you would like to offer your opinions or suggestions regarding these issues or any others that may be coming before the Kansas House, I want to hear from you. Please contact my secretary, Maureen (she always knows how to find me) by phone at (785-296-6014), by US Mail at (Rm 115-S Statehouse, Topeka, KS 66612) or by email at (vickrey@jenevickrey.org) during the Legislative Session.