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February 19, 2008

Yesterday’s Under the Dome lost due to computer failure!

Repeated computer crashes yesterday caused Under the Dome to be lost. We apologize to those of you who depend on your daily dose of legislative hubris. Hopefully it won’t happen again.

Senate Education Committee works like the dickens

Yesterday the Senate Education Committee held hearings on two bills and worked three in their frantic effort to meet the looming turn around deadlines. “Turn around” is that point in the session by which all bills must have either passed the chamber of origin or been referred to a time exempt committee in order to be considered in the second half of the session.  

Up for hearing yesterday was SB 459, the second count date bill. Under this any school district would be permitted a February 20 count date in addition to September 20. If the district grew by 1% or 25 students, it would then be entitled to 50% of the annual base state aid for those students. Some concern was expressed about the possible next step of reducing aid should a district decline. The bill does not allow that since using the second date is at the discretion of the school district and we have not heard any legislator propose a mandatory count. The bill was later passed out of committee and will now go to the full Senate.

Also heard was SB 470, a school safety bill. Last year the Senate passed a bill to improve timelines and reporting requirements for violations of the school safety act so as to suspend a violator’s driver’s license. Unfortunately in trying to improve the process the new version had a violation of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). SB 470 would retain the better timelines and reporting while complying with FERPA. It was later passed out of committee and will now go to the full Senate.

The committee also took action on SB 437, the ROTC scholarship bill that had a hearing earlier in the session. This bill would allow ROTC scholarships for community college students. It was amended to be a pilot program with Pittsburg State partnering with Fort Scott, Neosho County, and Allen County Community Colleges, Kansas State partnering with Cloud County Community College, and the University of Kansas partnering with Johnson County Community College. The committee also added in a provision to increase scholarship money for returning Iraq War veterans by $250,000 for a total of $500,000. The bill was passed out of committee as amended and will now go to the full Senate.

Senate Ed chews on all day kindergarten proposals

There were two all day kindergarten proposals before the Senate Education Committee today. SB 405 would phase in all day kindergarten funding by increasing the state aid generated by a student in an all day program by 1/10 annually for five years. SB 473 would phase it in by poverty. Any school with 61% of students on free lunch in the first year would get full funding for children in all day programs. It would go to 33% in the second year and all students would be eligible in the third. Since it also delays implementation by one year, it would take four years for all students to be covered.

KNEA lobbyist Mark Desetti appeared before the committee to support both bills. KNEA has been working to secure funding for all day kindergarten programs for years – the proposal is a perennial bill. While we support achieving the goal however the Legislature chooses, we believe that the phase in using poverty would allow the state to meet two goals – getting all day funding for all school districts while boosting the achievement of many at-risk children. Said Desetti, “The sooner we can address the needs of children in poverty, the better chance they have of success later in their school career.”

Also testifying in favor were Tom Krebs of KASB, Bill Reardon of Kansas City USD 500, and Stuart Little of Shawnee Mission USD 512. Reardon and Desetti were peppered with questions about “priorities.” Sen. Barbara Allen (R-Overland Park ) wanted Desetti to rank order KNEA’s priorities. In response, Desetti told the committee, “KNEA does not put a rank order on these priorities. All day kindergarten has always been important as are teacher salaries. For the many schools that are funding all day kindergarten out of their own resources, if the state picked up all day kindergarten, it would free up resources for salaries.” Desetti explained that KNEA has a commitment to both teachers and to the students we serve.

METS and KAMS off to the full Senate

The Senate Education Committee amended and passed out two more bills this afternoon.

SB 507 creates the mathematics, engineering, technology and science (METS) education innovation council, a group established at the request of the Math and Science Education Advisory Council to keep an eye on Kansas progress in math and science education. The high point here is that, for the first time, an education council will be required to have a licensed practicing teacher as a member! Thanks go to Sen. Ruth Teichman (R-Stafford) and Sen. Nick Jordan (R-Shawnee) for helping us get that in the bill.

SB 404 deals with the admittance of students to the newly created Kansas Academy of Math and Science (KAMS) at Fort Hays State University. The Academy is for academically talented students in math and science who would complete their last two years of high school at Fort Hays State. The bill allows the admittance of out-of-state students at their own expense and sets tuition and fee levels for Kansas students at no more than BSAPP.

Senate Commerce Committee hears bill to raise state minimum wage

The Senate Commerce Committee took testimony today on Senate Bill 466 by Sen. Roger Reitz (R-Manhattan) to raise the Kansas minimum wage to the federal level. Kansas has the lowest state minimum wage in the United States at $2.65/hour.

KNEA lobbyist Terry Forsyth spoke in favor of the bill. Forsyth informed the committee that the Kansas minimum wage “is a full $3.20 per hour lower than the next lowest rate and $4.60 lower than the current minimum wage in Iowa. With the exception of five southeastern states that have no state minimum wage, Kansas has the lowest in the United States. Our minimum wage is lower than the minimum wage in Guam, American Samoa, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.”

In all, 49 states and territories have a minimum wage higher than Kansas. KNEA believes the Kansas minimum wage needs to be raised to help children. Said Forsyth, “There are young children in Kansas living with parents who must struggle to survive on the Kansas minimum wage. These are the children who depend on the school for their hot meals of the day. These are children with nutritional deficiencies. These are the children most at-risk of failure. $5.85 per hour will not lift these children out of poverty but it will make a difference in their lives and the lives of their parents. And it will make a difference in their ability to take advantage of a good public school.”

In a rather ironic note, the executive director of Americans for Prosperity, Alan Cobb, appeared as an opponent to an increase in the minimum wage which leads one to ask, “Which Americans get your prosperity, Alan?” Americans for Prosperity (but not just anybody)!

Senate Ways & Means Committee considers 4th year of school funding

The Senate Ways and Means Committee took up SB 531 a bill with 33 Senate co-sponsors that would set a fourth year to the school finance plan by increasing base state aid per pupil (BSAPP) by $59. The proposal falls far short of the State Board of Education’s recommendation of $200 on BSAPP for the fourth year.

Education groups were mixed on the proposal with most endorsing the idea of the fourth year and agreeing that new funds should go to BSAPP but alarmed about the fact that $59 represents a sub-inflationary funding increase.

KNEA and KASB both thanked the committee for demonstrating a commitment to the fourth year and for putting the increase on BSAPP. Both organizations support the fourth year approach and the flexibility that comes with increases in BSAPP.

But both Mark Tallman of KASB and Mark Desetti of KNEA told the committee that the amount of money in the bill ($59 on BSAPP) was a sub-inflationary increase and would put Kansas at-risk of losing the gains that have been made over the past couple of years. Said Desetti, “Please do not think that by emerging from the school finance lawsuit, the work is done. We urge this committee to strive, even in tough economic times, to at the very least maintain the progress you have made.”

Former House Speaker Doug Mays who now lobbies for Topeka USD 501 urged the committee to consider this funding proposal as the “floor” and not the “ceiling” in their continued discussion during the session.

Every member of the Ways and Means Committee is a co-sponsor of SB 531. The bill was passed out of committee unanimously (Sen. Jay Emler, R-Lindsborg, was absent) and now goes to the full Senate.  

House Ed talks about changes to cost of living weighting

Rep. Kevin Yoder (R-Overland Park ) brought HB 2885 to the House Education Committee for consideration. The bill would make two changes to the cost of living weighting in the school finance formula. First, it would increase the amount of money a district could raise under the weighting and secondly, it would mandate that all money raised through the weighting be used for salaries.

KNEA Vice President Sherri Yourdon appeared before the committee to support the provision of the bill that mandates the funds be used for salaries. On the increase in the cap, Yourdon told the committee, “I will not weigh in on the raising of the cap. This is a policy issue that you will have to wrestle with in the context of taxes in general. We have come before  the Legislature many times to express concern with the trend to pass more and more funding decisions to the local level but this weighting is now part of the school finance formula and generally accepted as such.”

Yourdon also asked the committee to consider requiring a report on how the money is used to monitor compliance. Said Yourdon, “Money generated by the cost of living weighting should go to salary in addition to any increase in state aid. The cost of living weighting should not be used to supplant state aid in providing educator salary increases. For example, if a district received an increase of 4% in state aid and levied an additional 1% in cost of living weighting, we would expect salaries to increase by 5% - the sum of the additional funding increases.”

No action was taken on the bill.

Senate Tax Committee considers possible loss of $87 million

Piece of federal economic stimulus package would strip state of tax revenue

It’s an issue of “decoupling.” You see, the Kansas tax system, like that of the majority of states, is “coupled” to the federal tax system. When a change is made at the federal level, it is mirrored at the state level.

When Congress passed the new economic stimulus plan (the one that gives you a tax rebate this year) it included some business tax breaks. Among those breaks is an acceleration in the way businesses account for the depreciation of equipment. Applying that acceleration to Kansas means the state would lose about $87 million in revenue.

In comes Sen. Marci Francisco (D-Lawrence) with SB 636. Francisco’s bill would decouple that portion of the Kansas tax code from the federal code for one year. In that way, Kansas saves the $87 million while the rest of the economic stimulus plan goes ahead.

KNEA lobbyist Terry Forsyth appeared on behalf of both KNEA and KASB to ask legislators to approve the bill. It was clear that the committee has little interest in the bill and believes predictions that the accelerator will ultimately lead to a better economic pic

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