April 17, 2008
(Distributed to Kansas newspapers April 14, 2008)

It’s money this time

There’s an interesting little showdown coming between Gov. Kathleen Sebelius and a small section of the 173-page Mega appropriations bill that finances most of state government for the remainder of this fiscal year and next fiscal year.

If it is controversy, and it takes place in the Statehouse, the topic this year is either coal plant legislation or money. This time, its money combined with executive authority, plus the political plum of proposing to spend money on things that make a governor popular.

Here’s the lowdown and what you may want to watch for.

Last year, remember, the Legislature fought over expanded gambling in Kansas, passing over the strong objection of socially conservative lawmakers—who don’t believe in gambling—a bill that will allow up to four new state-owned-and-operated resort-casinos and at least three “racinos” or race tracks with slot machines.

Sebelius signed the bill into law, and if the Kansas Supreme Court after a May 15 hearing determines that the law is constitutional, that opens the spigot of millions of dollars in new revenue for the state.

We’re talking at best maybe $15 million for the current state fiscal year which ends June 30 and maybe another $60 million or more the next year. And, given a couple years during which casinos are built and put into operation, it could be $200 million or more a year flowing into the state.

Well, that’s always a good thing. If you gamble, part of what might be your winnings wind up with the state, but you don’t mind if you’ve won, and if you don’t gamble, you can consider the revenue a tax on libertines who gamble.

Even legislators who fought gambling legislation can get comfortable with spending the money it brings in, and in this year’s Mega appropriations bill, those anti-gamblers inserted provisions that essentially take the money and spend it on things they want even ill-gotten state gains spent on.
So, the Mega bill merely says that all the gambling money goes into three funds: One for property tax relief, another to buy down the state’s debt, and yet another for state infrastructure—that’s basically fixing up state property or building new state buildings.

All are laudable ways to spend gambling money. But the key is that it essentially takes away that revenue from the governor’s budget. Millions coming into the state and the governor can’t even propose spending it on something that appeals to a majority of voters, say, health care for the poor, elementary and secondary education, nice things like that.

Well, the showdown is likely coming soon. Will the governor line-item veto that provision that will deny her…and her successors…what could be hundreds of millions of dollars a year that the governor could propose to spend on nice things…or watch that money flow into untouchable—and politically un-sexy—accounts?

Have you ever heard a governor crow about reducing the state’s debt? How about repairing the utility tunnels under the Statehouse or replacing a roof on a state office building? Would either of those make a persuasive TV ad or maybe a political brochure?

Creation of those three funds is one of those little under-the-radar issues that rolls around the Statehouse that most people don’t hear about, but in the unrelenting governor vs. legislature scrap over who’s really in charge here, it is an important one.

It takes a line-item veto for the governor to win, and an extraordinary two-thirds majority vote of the House and Senate to defeat her.  

We’re waiting to see what happens…