(Syndicated to Kansas newspapers Jan. 2, 2017)
Might want to stretch out, maybe finish up that Christmas book you got last week, and get ready for what us Statehouse insiders consider the real New Year, which happens in daylight—at 2 p.m. Jan. 9.
There won’t be any of those red plastic cups filled with ice and pop and whatever else… but that’s when 40 senators and 125 representatives take their oaths of office and start reshaping the state government.
It’s going to be fascinating to watch, we’re promising.
First, of course, there is that little matter of filling a $350 million shortfall in the current fiscal year budget, trimming spending, pulling money out of programs that were safely protected by state law just last summer.
That $350 million shortfall? Might have been easier to deal with last year if lawmakers had known just how much money the state would receive, but now with less than six months left in the fiscal year, it’s going to be the equivalent of twice that impact on agencies and programs in the traditional budget year.
Once that current year shortfall is dealt with—and that’s the key to the rest of the session and upcoming budgets—well, there is the $443 million shortfall that will have to be accommodated for the next fiscal year. That’s a two-year total of nearly $800 million that must be pulled out of the budget, and that’s not going to be pretty.
That’s just the start for a session that has even old-timers a little shaken.
Atop the revenue shortfalls, lawmakers are bracing for the Kansas Supreme Court decision on whether the state is spending a constitutionally adequate amount of money to ensure all Kansas public schoolchildren are receiving equal access to educational programs.
But what about those less-than-earthshaking issues, depending on where you are standing?
Highways? Don’t look for much new spending, and at some point, the recent cutbacks in construction programs are going to draw legislative attention. Just cutting spending is one thing that the Kansas Department of Transportation has experts to assess what is necessary for safe operation of the highway system.
But at some point, it is likely that legislators themselves will start making decisions on what roads get repaired and which bridges replaced. Politically, you need to keep your House or Senate district constituents safe, or get that handy off-ramp built, but the real prospect of safety of the entire state highway system being based on political opportunity is a little…unsettling?
Need to save money? One obvious way is to determine just who gets room and board in state prisons and local jails. Keep the dangerous folks locked up, of course, but paring sentences and costs by non-incarceration of some criminals sounds reasonable. While “lock ‘em up” is political red meat, the cost savings by not imprisoning folks who have committed a crime, but not endangered others, is one way to go. But will the need to save money be louder than the ever-popular “tough on crime?” That’ll be one to watch…
And, of course, taxes are the issue that everyone’s watching…just who ought to pay taxes, and whether there is a provable dollars-and-cents profit to the state in not collecting taxes from those LLCs and self-employed and farmers who are mulling this issue while chewing prosciutto—not baloney—in their sandwiches.
Will the rush to balance the budget with cuts sideline the tax issue? Is it possible to cut services and programs that major campaign contributors don’t use so that the need for more state revenue is reduced? Is cutting spending so front-page important that lawmakers forget the tax shortfall that makes it necessary?
That may be the key to the upcoming session—distraction.
And the key to that key? Whether the distraction works…