September 2001

Sept. 27, 2001
(Distributed to Kansas newspapers Sept. 24, 2001)

Exploring home defense

Kansas legislators, especially those from beyond Topeka, are taking seriously the "home defense" part of the nation's response to the East Coast terrorism of just two weeks ago.

It's an issue that is easily understandable to Kansans, even if they aren't sure just what home defense is likely to mean.

So far, you see, the official state response to the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, and the failed effort that ended up with an airplane crash in Pennsylvania, has amounted to three-and-a-half days of heightened security at the Kansas Statehouse and restriction of public access to major state buildings to just one door, where visitors can be eyeballed by security guards.

Not much of a response, actually. And Statehouse hangers-on wonder whether, say, citizens in Johnson City or Stanton County feel much protected by their state government.

Home defense hasn't been a subject, luckily, that many Kansans needed to have a good handle on. Just what do we do?

Well, legislators are clearly thinking in two not-quite-opposite directions.

First, conservatives from around the state are still convinced that they don't want to raise taxes and take more money out of the pockets of Kansans. Just as you know you'll need cash for a long holiday weekend, legislators are saying that they don't want to reduce the amount of spending money that Kansans carry.

But legislators do want to do something that is visible, that shows that the state is fulfilling its primary role--protecting the safety and lifestyles of the citizens of Kansas.

Does it mean deputizing armies of civil defense workers, roving their towns with tin hats and buckets of sand? Probably not.

Does it mean building watchtowers near power plants, reservoirs and pipelines to make sure that terrorists don't start hanging around vital utilities? Again, probably not.

But it certainly means taking another look at the budget of the Kansas Highway Patrol and the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, and probably some retasking of those law enforcement officers from their feel-good anti-methamphetamine duty and concentrating their work on what they're best at...carefully examining their state for things that don't look "right" and which may be a tip-off that something dangerous is afoot.

It's not likely to be just the grizzled veterans, the American Legion or Veterans of Foreign Wars crowd in the Legislature who are looking for opportunities to provide something that feels like higher security for Kansans. It's likely to come first from, of course, the former Conservative Caucus, now renamed and reorganized as Kansas Legislative Education and Research Inc., which is the Legislature's premiere group of spending watchdogs and constitutionalists.

The group's former battle cry of examining the budget for expenditures that don't seem to fit clearly within the constitutional duties of state government turns easily into one of stepping up to the primary duties of state government, and that is, within the framework of larger national efforts, protecting the health and safety of Kansans.

There's a new mood in the Legislature. Just where it demonstrates itself, well, it's early to tell yet. But there's something afoot on the home defense front...finally.

Sept. 20, 2001
(Distributed to Kansas newspapers Sept. 17, 2001)

Food bio-security tightens

Even though no buildings fell in Kansas last week, it doesn't take much imagination to transpose last week's terrorist attacks on New York and Washington into close-to-home efforts to destabilize the state and nation's food chain.

That's why there was keen interest that, just minutes after the scope of the planes-as-terrorist-bombs was becoming known, the Special Committee on Agriculture was looking into food bio-security, from the feedlot and farm field up through the food chain and into the grocery store and the international markets for grain and meat.

No, it's not high-profile, and isn't likely to yield heart-rending video, but the safety of the nation's food production is just as vulnerable to terrorist attack--or accidental contamination by well-meaning inspectors and visitors to feedlots and grain processing facilities--as was the nation's transportation system.

The committee already is getting strong evidence that the state's farm industry is seeing major changes in the security arrangements made for feedlots. Visitors with reason to visit there, such as inspectors and suppliers, are already seeing efforts to make sure that the wholesomeness of the food supply isn't compromised.

Want to visit a giant, 70,000-animal feedlot in northwest Kansas? Be prepared to show identification, and to be accompanied by representatives of the feedlot.

Want to visit a mega hog farm? Be prepared to shower on the way in, don disposable and sanitary clothing, and then shower on the way out before visiting another farm.

Lawmakers are just now learning--and more encouraging they were interested in learning before the terrorist attack--the vulnerabilities of the nation's food production system.

Kansas agriculture has reached the sophistication and size that means that the tradeoff for huge production capabilities is the creation of points of vulnerability that weren't apparent in the mom-and-pop small production centers of 20 years or 50 years ago.

Just the dust from combines working the wheat harvest from Texas to the Canadian border can spread karnal bundt, which gives wheat a musty smell and taste that aren't physically harmful to those who eat infected wheat, but which render it unsaleable on the domestic or international markets. There are billions of dollars at stake in the wheat disease that threatens crops already in the bin. If the economic toll of not having a crop to harvest is bad, just imagine the economic consequence of totaling all the expenses of water and fertilizing and pesticiding and harvesting the crop, only to find that there is no market for it.

What can Kansas do? Well, the Legislature got a start last year by giving the Secretary of Agriculture wide authority to declare crop emergencies, to freeze crops so to speak, before they enter the market as commodities.

Next session? There are two obvious tacks to take. One is to increase penalties for anyone compromising the salability of crops. But, does anyone really believe two crop seasons in prison is going to deter a terrorist? We didn't think so.

The other tack is to step up inspections and testing to catch quickly diseased or adulterated animals and crops. That's going to take money, it's going to take organization and the cost is likely to land somewhere between the industry and the state and nation that depends on inexpensive food; inexpensive enough for a well-nourished nation and inexpensive enough for a real chance in international trade.

There is a lot of close-to-home work to be done in Kansas on national security issues that won't yield horrifying news footage.

We'll see next session whether the Kansas Legislature is ready to do that work.

Sept. 13, 2001
(Distributed to Kansas newspapers Sept. 10, 2001)

One brief nice thing

It is saddening even for smart-alecs at the Statehouse to watch a program--that initially was just a way to hide money from a ravenous election-year Legislature under the guise of helping old, really poor people pay for their prescription drugs--finally, formally be put into gear.

Last week, the state's Rules and Regulations Board approved, appropriately, the rules and regulations for the Kansas Senior Pharmacy Assistance Program. That program is a one-shot, get-it-out-the-door-and-onto-the-brochures effort that is so transitory that the good-for-90-days temporary rules and regulations for the program likely won't even be made permanent.

It turns out that the program, which sounded so good, really was a way to put a shiny and friendly face on just government business as usual. And that gives the whole program a pretty hollow ring.

The program is the Kansas Senior Pharmacy Assistance Program, and two years ago it was seen as an altruistic use of some of the money that the state received from the federal government by laundering Medicaid money through nursing homes.

All told, that intergovernmental transfer program made the state about $100 million, and Gov. Bill Graves back in 2000 quickly thrust most of the money, some $70 million, into the Senior Pharmacy Trust Fund. The idea was the trust fund would earn interest, and the interest from the fund would be used to help poor old people--the stereotypical choosing between drugs and food crowd--pay for their prescriptions.

Well, insiders knew that the money would be awfully tempting in the cash-strapped 2001 legislative session, and we joked among ourselves that at current interest rates, it didn't make any sense to tie up $70 million to earn less than $2 million for the senior citizens. So the money was spent in the current fiscal year, and what's left will be spent next fiscal year.

There was this hope that the federal government would take over the program, providing some real money to make it work, since, after all, there was this nearly-$2 trillion surplus in federal revenues about to be divvied up.

And, just in case the federal government got smart about it, and decided that any federal program would be in addition to state programs, Kansans got smart and decided they didn't want that $70 million here to be determined to be part of the state's "maintenance of effort" and tied up in perpetuity.

That was being smart, everyone agreed. Not to lock in too much money for doing something good.

Well, we read in the papers that the federal surplus is either gone or nearly gone or maybe gone-and-then-some, so prospects for federal assistance for the poor elderly from Washington don't look very good anymore.

And, at least we have this little do-good program that will spend about $1.2 million dollars all in one shot and maybe the state will call it a bonus program, or short-term assistance or something to make what pitiful little assistance it offers sound a little nicer.

So here are the temporary rules and regulations, in short: If you were at least 67 years old on Aug. 16 of this year, and taking part in one of two low-income programs, you are in the pool of people who qualify for the one-shot assistance. The assistance can be as much as 70 percent of the out-of-pocket drug costs for those people, up to a maximum benefit of $1,200.

Now, this is a pretty closed-ended program. The Department on Aging knows right now that there are only 2,692 Kansans eligible for the program. And of those generally poor old Kansans, area agencies on aging are going to help them get their pharmacy records in order so that shortly after Oct. 1, when the rules and regulations go into effect, the records can be sent to Topeka, where they will be scrutinized, and most likely, everyone who submits an application that is correctly filled out will get a share of the $1.2 million.

Could be that just 1,000 Kansans will get checks for $1,200, or more likely that more Kansans will get checks for less than that amount so the whole $1.2 million can get distributed quickly, by Dec. 31, when the program and the rules and regulations under which it is operated can expire. So there is no more money and there is no more program.

Now, $1,200 is something, of course. Not an insubstantial amount. But it is for the day-to-day drugs, the stuff people need to stay alive and out of nursing homes. Maybe they can save that money to buy more drugs for the next year, or maybe it will go out as Christmas gifts for the grandchildren. But it isn't really much of a program. Just one little nice thing from the $100-plus million that the state got from the federal government.

But that's all it is. One little nice thing. One time.

Sept. 6, 2001
(Distributed to Kansas newspapers Sept. 3, 2001)

There's a downside...

In politics and government, things have a way of evening out, we learned again last week when Gov. Bill Graves appointed his chief of staff, Joyce Glasscock, as Secretary of Administration.

The upside, of course, is that Graves gets a stalwart supporter, a woman who cannily managed his first election campaign eight years ago and helped out four years ago and not only got Graves a second term, but also ground under the well-polished heel of moderate Republican wing-tips the party's right-wing as represented by its former state chairman, David Miller.

Give Graves points for assigning Glasscock to a tough and demanding job that few doubt she'll handle nicely. But let's hold off on deciding whether Graves has put out a Republican brush fire with the appointment to a Cabinet-level position the wife of House Speaker Kent Glasscock, R-Manhattan, who wants to grow up to be governor...in about 16 months.

So far, Graves appears to have given Kent Glasscock a substantial leg up in his campaign by deciding that Graves isn't going to make a hail-Mary play for higher levels of funding for elementary and secondary education, and forcing Glasscock to defend his no-new-taxes for education House of Representatives.

It was an issue defused, and one that will be tricky for Glasscock, but considerably less tricky now that he's not going to have to lead his chamber in opposition to the governor.

That's where the move of Joyce Glasscock from the inner-sanctum of the governor's office to the job of Secretary of Administration may or may not be a wise political move for the Speaker.

The Secretary of Administration's office has been moved from the Statehouse to the sparkling new Signature Office Building just cater-corner from the Capitol, and at least until the prairie dog town-style network of tunnels is dug, some degree of separation can be asserted by both Graves and Joyce Glasscock.

Think for a minute that move diminishes the fears of other Republicans who would like to be governor that Graves is in the mood to hand over his office to Glasscock? Think again.

As Secretary of Administration, Glasscock now has control of thousands of state employees, scores of government-to-business contracts, labor negotiations and...which might be very important for the coming election year, the State Employees Health Care Commission.

The Secretary of Administration is the chairman of that board that is relatively obscure to the general public, but which is very important to state workers, who tend to be fussy about their health insurance coverage and its cost.

Joyce Glasscock takes over at a time when thousands of state employee policies are being rejiggered so that instead of seeing sharp increases in premiums, they'll instead see the imposition of a mandatory deductible on health care services and new, higher out-of-pocket costs for prescription drugs.

Now, that'll make for interesting dinner-table conversation between a cabinet secretary and a Speaker of the House who holds the key to the treasury that could mean hundreds of dollars in stay-in-your-pocket money for thousands of state employees.

Yes, there's a downside to the Glasscock appointment that some Republicans who didn't like having the Speaker's wife just across the hall from the governor as chief of staff might not have considered yet.

And Democrats? Well, officially, of course, they are seeking important answers to important questions about Joyce Glasscock's qualifications to hold the new job.

But Statehouse observers are confident that at least one Democrat, Insurance Commissioner Kathleen Sebelius, who sometime next spring will be able to oversee the distribution of at least $150 million in rebates to about one-third of Kansans whose health insurance company is Blue Cross-Blue Shield of Kansas, is probably thinking that Mrs. Glasscock is an ideal choice for Secretary of Administration.

Especially if Kent Glasscock emerges from the field of GOP gubernatorial nominees to be her opponent in the November 2002 general election.

This little management shuffle could be interesting...