August 2009

Aug. 27, 2009
(Syndicated to Kansas newspapers Aug. 24, 2009)

After unemployment: A budget issue?

Yes, we were all spooked a little when the Kansas Department of Labor announced that the Kansas unemployment rate hit 7.7% of the state’s worker population last week.

That’s a lot of people without work. The little-noticed figure is that there were 208,715 continuing claims for unemployment benefits in July.

Now, unemployment compensation is a great deal if you’ve lost your job and qualify for the benefit, which is designed to keep you afloat while you hunt for a new job or hope that business turns around enough that you can be rehired for your old job.

But the unemployment numbers carry some very scary implications for the Kansas government which, of course, is what they do here at the Statehouse.

The good news is that the average weekly benefit for Kansans receiving unemployment compensation is $360 a week, which includes a $25-a-week special payment authorized by the federal government.

Now, $360 a week would be a pretty good job for thousands of Kansans, but it’s an average, and there are Kansans who were laid off from low-paying jobs who are receiving $150 or so a week. For them, a $360-a-week job would be a dramatic improvement in their quality of life.

At $360 a week in unemployment benefits, most families headed by an out-of-work breadwinner won’t qualify for welfare benefits or Medicaid health care.

But under current state and federal laws, under the “best” of conditions, one can qualify for those weekly unemployment benefits for a maximum of 59 weeks. That in itself is a dramatic change over the past years. Many of us can remember back to days when unemployment compensation lasted just 13 weeks.

Thousands of Kansans—including state agencies and lawmakers—are looking for a scary number…the dates when Kansans have exhausted their unemployment benefits. It will be a rolling number—more Kansans who have been on unemployment benefits every week exhausting those benefits and having virtually no cash coming into their homes.

It will mean, initially, more applications for welfare benefits, and it will translate into more Kansans who will need Medicaid health-care benefits.

And, that will mean more demand for those services—which we call “entitlements” because if you qualify for the benefits, you are entitled to them: Whether the state has the readily available funds to pay them or not.

That’s the special “insiders” concern about unemployment rates…when Kansans fall off the program.

Aug. 20, 2009
(Syndicated to Kansas newspapers Aug. 17, 2009)

How long on the bus?

We heard all last year from legislators that they were going to overhaul Kansas government as we know it to make it leaner, meaner, more efficient…and cheaper to operate in this tight budget era.

Well, it didn’t happen last session, nothing significant, just haircuts for state spending. And, much of that was done without the votes of the Kansas House’s leadership team.

The House Appropriations Committee is going to have extraordinary off-season meetings starting later this month, and leadership touts consideration of consolidation of schools, courts, cities, counties, about anything we have more than one of.

Now, school consolidation is probably possible, but it is uncertain just what political price will be paid for even considering it, and whether it causes the biggest urban-rural fight in recent memory.

School consolidation is the sort of issue that even talking out loud about—let alone voting for—can kill a legislator’s career.

Eastern Kansans look out west, to sprawling districts with few pupils, and figure that it costs too much to educate children a handful at a time. It’s inefficient, of course, but how long do you want a kid to ride a bus to school? One hour? Two hours? Half a day? Or, do you think anyone’s going to go for dormitories for western Kansas kids to live in during the week, returning home to their parents for the weekend from their more-efficient regional schools?

Western Kansans look at eastern Kansas, where there are lots of kids conveniently densely located, and the possibility of combining districts to eliminate levels of overhead and management expense come to mind. Oh, did we mention that the majority of members of the Legislature are from eastern Kansas and from those big school districts that basically don’t want to be messed with?

Lawmakers could make it even easier for districts to consolidate—a handful of districts have done that—essentially leaving the tough political decisions to local school boards. Anyone wonder if a local school board member who votes to consolidate his/her district with the rival adjoining district will be able to buy fire insurance on his/her home?

Now, consolidation sounds attractive, pencils out in most cases to be a savings…but at terrible political cost for lawmakers who need friends to be reelected. Oh, and next year, all 125 House seats are up for election…

Let’s not even get into the real kitchen table issue: Which districts are going to have to give up their mascots, their school colors, and, of course, their cheerleader uniforms…

Aug. 13, 2009
(Syndicated to Kansas newspapers Aug. 10, 2009)

When nobody comes to your party…

What if you gave a party and nobody came?

Or, this being the Statehouse, what if you gave a tax credit and nobody used it?

Both involve probably good intentions, but it’s got to be a little embarrassing. What sounded like a good idea to at least one legislator and which a majority of legislators were convinced was a good idea, the governor concurring therein, just didn’t find any takers.

Why? Who knows? But at some point, certain breaks were considered to be sound public policy designed to encourage Kansas taxpayers to do something that they probably should have done anyway or would have like to have done if it didn’t cost so much.

Here’s one: Swine Facility Improvement Credit. It’s a credit against your state income taxes for making improvements required by law to a qualified swine production facility. Now, you’d think if you were raising hogs for a living and wanted to make sure that you are up-to-date and environmentally responsible, this would be a good deal. Do what’s right and get a tax credit for it. Sounds good, and some legislator must have had something in mind when it was proposed and later passed. No takers. Not one dime has been deducted from anyone’s taxes for making those improvements.

And, here’s an environmental deal that on its surface sounds like a good idea, but didn’t go anywhere: It’s an income tax credit for a property owner whose land is designated as a critical wildlife habitat or who incurs expenses for managing that critical wildlife habitat area so that its wildlife is protected.

Sounds good…help protect wildlife on your own land and get a tax credit for it. Environmentalists ought to love it. Well, nobody did. The state hasn’t paid out any money or cut anyone’s tax bill under provisions of that law that at one time sounded like a pretty nice little deal…maybe worth a bullet point on a campaign brochure in Lawrence or Johnson County.

Now, there are dozens of tax credits that are used by Kansans ranging from investment in local seed capital funds to that biggie, the food sales tax refund for the poor.

But, you gotta wonder whether some of those narrow, rifle-shooting credits just missed the target, or whether there was even a target there to hit.

It makes you wonder whether the tax-cuts-to-encourage-behavior actually do…

Aug. 6, 2009
(Syndicated to Kansas newspapers Aug. 3, 2009)

Texting & legislating?

Have you noticed that more people appear to be using their fancy little cell phones to tap out messages to friends while they’re driving?

“Texting” was probably going on a lot the past several years, but now that it’s in the press every couple days it just seems like there is more of it going on and presumably, there are more people paying more attention to their cell phones than to driving. Or, at least it seems that way when you notice in the rear view mirror someone texting and maybe letting his/her car or truck creep up a little closer to your rear bumper than you would like.

Texting or just using a cell phone while driving has caught a dab of attention by the Kansas Legislature, but only for kids.
The new graduated driver’s license law for beginners says that if you are younger than 17—when you get a full-fledged driver’s license—you can’t use a “wireless communications device” while at the wheel. Once a new driver is 17, well, we presume that it’s OK. It’s not a specific infraction unless it somehow gets ground into a “driving while distracted” citation.

Learning to drive is serious business and you don’t want kids who are just figuring out how to make a left turn to be distracted by learning that they’ve got a new Facebook friend or that their Twitter best friends forever are agonizing over where to get their next latte.

But there’s also the chance that kids are better at texting while driving than us grown-ups who can and sometimes do drive almost unconsciously while concentrating on texting and remembering just what rules of common grammar can be jettisoned because it’s “just a text message…”

The new graduated driver’s license law hasn’t been on the books long enough for there to be significant complaints about denying cell phones and text messages to youngsters. And you never hear about adults being pulled over for texting while driving, though there are some studies out there that say the chances of a texter being in a wreck is about the same as someone at .08 blood alcohol content—legally too drunk to drive.

Maybe this texting business is a serious enough safety hazard to be put in the same league as driving at .08. If it is, then maybe while driving at .08 but not texting at the same time gets you a break on the infraction, but texting while drinking and driving draws a more serious penalty.

We’re figuring that we haven’t heard the last of texting while driving and it will take up some time in the Statehouse next session.

But, don’t look for anything about texting while legislating…