Aug. 19, 2010
(Syndicated to Kansas newspapers Aug. 16, 2010)

Two approaches to Cedar Crest

At some point in a gubernatorial campaign, the idea is to have such nice ideas and goals for an upcoming administration that, party aside, well, we’re all for whatever the candidate promises.

That complicates the whole campaign for Kansas governor this fall. Republican U.S. Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., and his lieutenant governor running mate, State Sen. Jeff Colyer, R-Overland Park, so far have rolled out a bunch of nice goals: Smarter children, higher incomes, fewer children in poverty. Who’s not for that?

Democratic gubernatorial nominee State Sen. Tom Holland, D-Baldwin City, is probably for those things, too, but to make an issue of it, he has to get Brownback to explain how he’s going to work with limited state resources to accomplish those goals.

For Holland, it’s matching those goals with Brownback’s votes in the U.S. Senate against bills that have some impact on the prosperity goals. And, a U.S. senator leaves a lot of tracks in the snow, recorded votes for and against things that if you have the time--and the audience’s attention—you can hollow out those platitudes.

From spending three days on the Brownback/Colyer bus tour, this journalist saw that  Brownback’s generalized campaign goals were well received. Even some new items—like working to get a cheese factory in southwest Kansas to provide a reliable market for the rapidly growing southwest Kansas dairy industry—drew applause.

On Saturday at the Kansas Democratic Party’s mid-year meeting called Demofest in Wichita, also attended by this journalist, Holland was preaching to his Democratic choir that Brownback has voted against money for those nice educational, anti-poverty programs in Congress, and are you going to believe what Brownback says or how he voted in the Senate?

Holland speaks about accomplishing good educational systems and care for the poor through use of Kansas Lottery revenues. Brownback isn’t really saying where money for his nice things will come from, except an improving economy with ideas he has to make Kansas more productive and increase the state’s level of prosperity.

That’s really where the next 2 ½ months go: Holland, and his lieutenant governor running mate, State Sen. Kelly Kultala, D-Kansas City, trying to make Brownback say how he’s going to accomplish those nice things, and Brownback/Colyer saying it’s complicated, but keep your eye on the goal.

Which approach works? Hard to tell yet.

First, we know there are Democrats in Kansas who will never vote for a Republican—probably fearing anguish in the afterlife—and Republicans who will never vote for a Democrat, probably for the same reason.

Second, we know there are more Republicans in Kansas than Democrats, so the key for Democrats is to get people to look past the “R” behind a candidate’s name. It’s obviously doable—think back just a short time to two-term Democratic Gov. Kathleen Sebelius—but it isn’t easy.

After the bus tour and Demofest, the race has officially started. Republicans will be touting nice things they want to happen which they say are possible through growing the economy. Democrats will be countering with “look behind the curtain and see whether you trust the wizard.”

It’ll be an interesting couple months, and at some point, someone is going to be elected governor

Aug. 12, 2010
(Syndicated to Kansas newspapers Aug. 9, 2010)

On the way out, and in

If there is a simple fact to remember in consideration of Kansas government, it’s that at about noon on Jan. 10, 2011, it all belongs to the new guy.

That’s when either Republican U. S. Sen. Sam Brownback or Democrat State Sen. Tom Holland gets the keys to the governor’s office, and essentially the entire state government, its people its budgets, its programs.

We Statehouse habitués tend to watch programs and spending closely during this fiscal year that started under one governor and will finish under another.

Think about it: Every dime spent between July 1 and Jan. 10 is a dime that the new governor isn’t going to have available to spend to finish up the fiscal year which stretches to June 30, 2011.

That’s why something very nice that the outgoing administration of Democrat Gov. Mark Parkinson has done is coming under relatively quiet scrutiny by Statehouse insiders.

What happened?  Parkinson’s Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services, which manages welfare programs, announced  relatively quietly in late July that it was going to give some of the state’s poorest families, with children between ages 3 and 17, $500 per family to get school supplies for those kids.

Now, nobody doesn’t want poor kids to show up on the first day of school without a nice pair of jeans and shoes and a warm coat for winter, and the crayons and pens and pads and notebooks—and school fees—that they will need to start the school year.

And this money goes to poor families—about 11,000 of them.

That’s $5.5 million that SRS is spending that won’t be available to the new governor in January.  The money comes from the federal government, some of that American Recovery and Reinvestment Act money, that the state has received and which it probably isn’t going to receive any more of in the future.  So it was a nice thing that Parkinson’s administration gets to do on the way out the door.

Folks who watch state government closely are going to be watching for other on-the-way-out spending by the current administration, to see just what money the new governor is going to be left with to finish out the first fiscal year of his term in office.

It is widely presumed that the new governor is going to have to reshuffle the remainder of the current year’s budget. The more money that is spent between now and inauguration day, the more reshuffling there will be—likely spending cuts here and there to fit the entire fiscal year into the remaining budget.

Worth watching: It’s bad enough to be governor of a state that is in bad fiscal condition, but it sure takes the bloom off the rose when within days of the pomp and circumstance and celebration of an inauguration that new governor has to announce millions of dollars of cuts in programs and services to Kansans.

Might be interesting to watch the last five months of Parkinson’s administration, don’t you think?

Aug. 5, 2010
(Syndicated to Kansas newspapers Aug. 2, 2010)

A month away…

We’re a month away from finding out whether the state’s new 1-cent addition to the Kansas sales tax—and the since-July-1 ban on most indoor smoking—have had a measureable effect on state revenues, and on business at bars and restaurants.

The sales tax was basically a means to finance the state’s budget, and the indoor smoking ban, well, it is a public health measure that will undoubtedly have some downstream effects on businesses.

Because the majority of the 80,000 businesses that collect sales taxes report those taxes—and send them in—to the Kansas Department of Revenue at least a month after they’ve been received, the July take to the state from sales taxes didn’t give us a good idea whether Kansans just stopped buying stuff to avoid the sales tax. In July, Kansas took in $145.7 million in sales taxes from retailers around the state.

Because of the reporting delay for all but big retailers—think Wal-Mart and automobile dealerships which pay sales taxes on an accelerated schedule—it’s the end-of-August report of taxes that will tell us whether the 1-cent increase has really souped-up tax revenues. You’re going to have to be somewhat of an economist to tell, though, because there’s a lot of back-to-school buying going on that tends to inflate retail activity.

The smoking/bar correlation ought to be more direct. Bar owners have maintained that if customers can’t smoke in bars, they’ll drink less in bars—or, maybe just drink at home—reducing the state tax revenues that are included in the price of drinks and sales tax on food and munchies sales.

The sales tax and the smoking ban may be the most interesting examples of downstream effects of what happens in the Kansas Legislature.

The sales tax bump was done to finance the state budget and avoid further cuts to education, law enforcement and many social programs. It’s predicted to pull in an additional $320 million this year for the State General Fund. But opponents of the sales tax increase maintain that it will send buyers out of state, damaging Kansas businesses. We ought to get a chance to gauge that assertion in August, when the vast majority of retailers report their July tax collections which reflect the new 6.3 percent rate.

The smoking ban? That’s going to be tougher to gauge. Maybe it’s keeping customers out of bars where they used to smoke and drink and eat. Maybe customers will just go outside to smoke and return to their drinks. Maybe they won’t. Maybe they’ll just eat and drink at home, damaging the business of the bars. Or, maybe people who didn’t like smoky bars will start going to smoke-free bars, boosting bar business.  Bar owners say business is down, but the proof will be the drink taxes they report to the state.

Upside to the smoking ban, of course, is better public health. But there’s no dollar sign attached to better health that directly flows into the state treasury. There are lower expenditures for health care, probably fewer cases of cancer and heart attacks and such, but while those are important, measuring the state’s cost-savings through avoided smoke is virtually impossible.

So, we’ll see at the end of August if the sales tax increase is as strong as predicted, and the state budget holds up, and whether bar owners stay in business, or figure out what they have to do in the way of accommodating smokers outside to stay in business.
Interesting month coming up…