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May 11, 2006

This week’s links:

Check out the conference committee report briefs from the Legislative Research Dept. – everything from school finance to shipping wine!

School Finance in Focus: SB 549 as it was adopted by both chambers!

The KSDE district-by-district analysis of SB 549!

School finance dominates as legislators fall just short of a record-length wrap-up session

It was almost like watching Barry Bonds trying to overtake Babe Ruth.

Back in 2002 the Kansas Legislature set a record by staying in their three-day veto session for 16 action packed days. Here we were in 2006 watching as legislators convened on day 15 and wondering if they would finally out-debate the record.

Sometimes it looked like they would. They were bringing up gambling, human cloning, TABOR and a whole host of highly contentious issues at the last moment leading us to believe the end might never come.

There were a number of times when it looked like school finance plans would continue to fail and even the omnibus appropriations (state budget) bill was in jeopardy.

But the 2002 record still stands! This group adjourned one day short of a tie.

May 1: Budget almost goes down; schools see no action

The House spent the day going into the chamber, taking a recess to caucus, returning and recessing, returning and recessing.

The only real action they took was to pass – just barely – the omnibus budget bill, putting it officially in conference with the Senate. There was some doubt that the bill would pass as it had only 63 votes to advance to a final action vote. Ultimately it received 65 votes after a call of the House under which everyone is forced to vote.

Action had been expected on the new Select Committee school finance bill, House Sub for Senate Sub for SB 584, but the House adjourned for the day without debating the bill.

May 2: House debates, advances really bad school finance plan

The House spent the entire day debating House Sub for Senate Sub for SB 584, the reduced school finance plan that made the House negotiate against itself.

In the end, the House flipped on school finance, rejecting their earlier school finance bill for a much cheaper version loaded with bad policy ideas.

An early amendment to the bill offered by Ward Loyd gutted the Select Committee’s new bad plan and put the House Coalition plan as passed earlier in the session in its place. The Loyd motion passed on a vote of 63-61 as the coalition held tight.

Amendments then followed in quick order:

• Bill Otto tried to gut the Loyd amendment and insert the Senate’s school finance plan. The amendment failed 58-62.

• Clay Aurand offered an amendment on transportation allowing buses to cross district lines under certain conditions. The amendment passed 93-19.

• Peggy Mast offered the teaching abortion amendment under which if abortion was mentioned in a sex education class, teachers would be required to teach about abortion procedures and fetal pain. Schools that failed to do this would lose their state funding. The amendment passed 74-49.

• Frank Miller asked for reconsideration of the Otto amendment. Miller’s request passed 64-59 but the Otto amendment failed again on a vote of 62-62.

• An amendment by Kasha Kelley to require the teaching of character education passed on a voice vote.

• An amendment by Sue Storm to change the curriculum standards review process from a three-year cycle to a seven-year cycle passed on a voice vote.

• Lynne Oharah offered his amendment to require school districts to pay for college remedial classes. The amendment failed on a vote of 54-64.

• Jim Yonally tried to add in the “Abstinence Plus” program that put in statute lapsed sex education standards from the State Department and to require an opt-out provision instead of the State Board’s new opt-in provision. The amendment failed 60-62.

Mike O’Neal then offered a new gut and go amendment. This one would gut out the Coalition plan and put in a slightly altered Senate plan plus all of the bad policy provisions from the Select Committee. He left out his “meritless merit measure” under which teachers could surrender their rights for a little bit of “merit” pay.

The O’Neal gut and go was sitting at a 62-62 split when Representative Mario Goico – who had been out of state attending a funeral – showed up and cast the deciding vote allowing the amendment to pass 63-62.

Dennis McKinney then offered an amendment to restore one of the at-risk provisions from the Loyd amendment. His motion failed on a vote of 62-62.

The bill was then advanced to final action on a vote of 63-62. That vote would come on May 3.

May 3: House reverses itself; kills the bad finance plan then takes up TABOR

The House convened to take a final action vote on the latest version of SB 584 advanced the previous night.

In a quick vote, the bill was killed on a vote of 55-69. This action put the House in an interesting position. The only school finance bill that had passed the House was the Moderate/Democratic Coalition plan – the largest of all school finance bills debated in either chamber this year. However, voting on the floor demonstrated that a large number of House members were not interested in trying to meet the Court ruling and the members of the Conference Committee would likely include Mike O’Neal and Kathe Decker – two representatives not known for their support of increased school funding.

In an interesting twist, Rep. Gary Hayzlett replaced Mike O’Neal on the conference committee. Hayzlett’s positions are not any different than O’Neal’s so while it made no difference ideologically it did change the dynamic.

The conference committee met just long enough to hear an overview of the Senate position – Sen Sub for SB 584. Later in the day a motion was made to reconsider the morning action on House Sub for Senate Sub for 584.

Two things can happen when this motion is made: 1) a new vote on the bill is taken and it gets passed or 2) the body can reject the motion to reconsider, a vote that drives a stake through the bill’s heart so that it can’t be considered again. Usually the motion is made in hopes of achieving the second outcome.

The motion to reconsider by Assistant Minority Leader Jim Ward failed on a voice vote. The bad House finance plan was now officially dead.

The “TABOR-light” bill in HCR 5043 – a constitutional amendment requiring a 2/3 majority vote to  enact any tax increase – was brought to the floor in the afternoon where it was amended up before being referred back to committee, an action that doomed the bill for this session (although, like Lord Voldemort, bad ideas rarely die completely).

The bill had been held in committee where it was apparent it did not have the votes to be sent to the floor. House Speaker Doug Mays, a TABOR supporter, used his position to bring the bill out of committee to give it a floor vote. This action is another “more politics than policy issue” since it simply means that anti-government, anti-tax ideologues can have a recorded vote to put in campaign literature.

The first person to take the bill on was Rep. John Edmonds who offered an amendment to make passage of any bill contingent upon a 2/3 majority vote. Edmonds argued that really great ideas would naturally get a 2/3 majority vote and if an idea had more that 1/3 of the body against it maybe it wasn’t such a good idea. The Edmonds amendment passed on a voice vote.

Next up was Rep. Jerry Williams who tacked on an exemption for tax increases to pay for Medicaid. It passed on a vote of 96-24.

Then Rep. Tom Holland did the same thing for highway improvements. His amendment passed 84-32.

Rep. Sidney Carlin’s motion exempting tax increases for higher education passed on a vote of 82-33.

Rep. Bonnie Sharp tacked on an amendment requiring a 2/3 majority for tax decreases or giveaways. It passed on a voice vote.

At that point Rep. Bill Feuerborn moved to refer the bill back to committee; a motion that passed on a 63-57 vote.

The amended bill went back to the Appropriations Committee where it did not have the votes to be passed out for further floor action.

May 4: Zero, zippo, zilch

Education advocates spent the day under the dome waiting for the House and Senate to either recess or adjourn so the conference committee could meet again and get to work drafting their plan but in a surprise move, the House adjourned with no meeting scheduled.

Hence…nothing to report. No meeting; no progress.

May 5: Why run one plan when you can run two?

The education conference committee met briefly in the afternoon and agreed to a plan proposed by Senate Conferees under which two conference committee reports would be run. Here’s how the plan would work:

1. The House Coalition plan would go in HB 2809 and run again on the Senate floor. The plan had already failed once in the Senate.
2. The Senate plan would go in SB 549 and run again on the House floor. This plan failed in the House.
3. Any plan that passes would be run in the other chamber.

This could have set the money issue. Most people knew that the House plan was unlikely to pass the Senate. If the Senate plan, which is much less costly, would pass the House then the money level would be set at the lower Senate plan level. Under normal circumstances a conference committee negotiating a spending bill with two different levels would seek a compromise position between the two levels.

If both plans were rejected one could argue that the Senate plan was too low for the House while the House plan was too high for the Senate thus forcing the conference committee to seek that compromise position between the two.

In quick floor action both plans were killed

After a short debate HB 2809 went down to defeat in the Senate on a vote of 9 to 31.

SB 549 garnered even less debate in the House where it failed on a vote of 12 to 106.

With both plans dead, there was no need to send either one to the other chamber.

Later that night the Senators came to the conference committee with a compromise plan.

The new plan would split the difference between the two funding levels and came in at about $500 million over three years. The funding areas were the same as those in other plans (BSAPP, at-risk, high at-risk, non-proficient at-risk, correlation weighting and special education) and the policy provisions included were limited. The plan would be put into HB 2809 and run in the Senate on Monday.  

May 8: Split the difference, then vote it down

Another school finance plan fell victim to a Senate intent on rejecting and reducing whatever school finance plan might be presented.

Speaking against the latest compromise were Senators Wagle, Journey, Apple, Brownlee, Donovan and Barnett. Barnett, in a practice that had become all too common, turned his moment into yet another campaign speech attacking the Governor for the Senate’s failure to pass his school finance plan (SB 501 was rejected earlier in the session). We suppose the implication was that the Governor is somehow persuading conservative senators to vote NO on any school finance bill that comes forward. This train wreck in the Senate was entirely of the Senate’s making.

The motion to adopt the conference committee report failed on a vote of 16 – 22 with two senators who would likely have voted YES absent (Roger Reitz and Pete Brungardt).

May 9: We’ve got a plan, no we don’t, yes we do!

At a 9:00 am meeting, the House had a proposal to put before the Senate. A new $466 million plan would address the same issues as other plans but reduce the overall amount of money to the level in the only plan the Senate had passed up to this point.

The new plan –contained in a conference committee report on SB 549 – would run in the House first.

But the conference committee report appeared to be unraveling even before it was finished being drafted!

House Speaker Doug Mays had been seen in a close discussion with House Committee Chair Kathe Decker shortly after the conference committee meeting and since then there had been a hastily called “meeting at the rail” of the conference committee in which the House was rumored to be backpedaling from the agreement.

In addition, Senator John Vratil was rumored to be very dissatisfied with the plan’s effect on Johnson County and would not sign the report.

It became necessary to vote on an “agree to disagree” before the plan could be considered. Things were looking iffy and nerves were frayed.

Midnight: School finance passes with a one vote margin!

The conference committee report ran on the House floor in the evening and, after almost no discussion at all, was adopted on a vote of 66-54. But the plan had lost the support of the Johnson County Moderate Republicans who had been part of the Mod/Dem Coalition last year and through the session this year. Their complaint was that the current plan did far more for rural schools at the expense of their districts. But the plan picked up enough rural folk to offset the loss of Johnson County.

The rift put the plan in jeopardy in the Senate where the seven Johnson County Senators represent about 18% of the votes. Four of those seven (Brownlee, Jordan, O’Connor, and Wilson) had voted against almost every school finance bill while the other three (Allen, Vratil, and Wysong) voted consistently for school finance. The Johnson County issue in this bill put the votes of the three supporters of public schools in jeopardy. Again, the question was whether the bill would pick up enough of the other senators to offset the possible loss of those three.

The bill ran late at night and initially garnered only 19 votes with Senators Emler, McGinn, and Taddiken taking the places of Allen, Vratil, and Wysong in the YES column. Four Senators passed (Donovan, Huelskamp, Ostmeyer, and Pine) and of those only Roger Pine moved to the YES column. Roger Reitz (a funding supporter) and Kay O’Connor (a funding opponent) were both absent.

Majority Leader Derek Schmidt asked  for a “call of the Senate” under which the doors are locked and all Senators are kept in their seats while the missing senators are located and brought in – and while pressure can be put on a few in an attempt to change votes. After about a 20 minute call, Senator Dwayne Umbarger switched from NO to YES and Senate President Steve Morris closed the roll and took the tally. The report was adopted on a vote of 21 to 17.

The Senate then stood at ease waiting for Senator O’Connor to arrive. She entered the chamber shortly after midnight and, by unanimous consent, was allowed to cast her NO vote. The final vote then was 21 to 18.

Voting YES on the school finance plan were:

Jim Barone, Donald Betts, Pete Brungardt, Jay Emler, Marci Francisco, Mark Gilstrap, Greta Goodwin, David Haley, Anthony Hensley, Laura Kelly, Janis Lee, Carolyn McGinn, Steve Morris, Derek Schmidt, Vickie Schmidt, Jean Schodorf, Chris Steineger, Mark Taddiken, Ruth Teichman, Roger Pine, and Dwayne Umbarger.

Voting NO were:

Barbara Allen, Pat Apple, Jim Barnett, Karin Brownlee, Terry Bruce, Les Donovan, Tim Huelskamp, Nick Jordan, Phil Journey, Kay O’Connor, Ralph Ostmeyer, Peggy Palmer, Mike Peterson, Dennis Pyle, John Vratil, Susan Wagle, Dennis Wilson, and David Wysong.

The plan now goes to the Governor. 

May 10: The last day but evil was still afoot!

Under the dome in the morning it was all rumors. And some of those rumors were pretty big deals!

There was a rumor about expanded gaming. People were talking about a last minute attempt to run a gaming bill through the House and seeing if it couldn’t pass as part of a comprehensive effort to fund both school finance and tax cuts for businesses. An attempt was indeed made but it was half-hearted at best and proponents managed to get only 44 votes to call up a bill in which to put a gaming proposal.

The next rumor was TABOR; would there be another attempt to pass a constitutional amendment hamstringing the Legislature’s ability to fund state services? There was a resolution sitting on the calendar and an attempt to pull that resolution up for use as a TABOR vehicle was killed when it received only 14 votes. That disposed of the last vehicle on which to attach a TABOR constitutional amendment.

And finally, there was a rumor that the Senate was ready to reconsider their action of the previous night on the school finance bill. Majority Leader Derek Schmidt rose and acknowledged the rumors; suggesting perhaps he would make the motion himself. Schmidt said that the bill had been sent back to the House and the House was now technically “in possession” of the bill. His reading of the rules was that once a chamber no longer had possession of the bill, it could not be reconsidered in that chamber. Senate President Steve Morris agreed and the attempt to reconsider was set aside. The bill stood.

The rest of the day was spent wrapping up the last few conference committee reports including one on campaign finance reform, one on business machinery and equipment tax cuts, and a trailer bill cleaning up some problems with the recently passed concealed carry of handguns bill. And of course, the ever contentious omnibus appropriations bill.

This year the appropriation for the K-12 education bill was put in the school finance bill itself so it would not be impacted by negotiations on the omnibus appropriations bill. That meant, even if the appropriations bill was voted down, the school finance plan would be funded. But in the end everything passed and the second chamber adjourned by 8:15 pm.

Our initial thoughts on the school finance bill

KNEA is taking a realistic view of this plan. We are unenthusiastic about a plan that is the result of continuing reductions from the original House-passed plan. We also realize that had the plan gone back to the conference committee things would likely get worse. The conference committee had already abandoned all day kindergarten and any increase in special education. The plan is significantly less than the level of funding called for in the LPA cost study but it has the most money in the first year of any of the plans considered. Given that the first year is the only guaranteed year (legislators love to defend generous out-year plans by saying, “It’s only a suggestion; we can’t tie the hands of future legislatures!”) the front loading of this plan is important for district planning purposes. 

Will the plan get the Court’s blessing? That is anyone’s guess. Again, it falls far short of the LPA study and has been crafted by finding an amount that could get the requisite number of votes and then deciding how to spend it. The Court has been pretty clear in that they expect the legislature to find out what was needed and then appropriate it. Plaintiff’s attorneys have told the press that they do not believe this plan passes muster and will challenge it before the Court. We’ll just have to wait and see if the Court will let this go on an interim basis or send the legislature back to work.
 

Some legislators won’t be returning by choice!

Conservatives:

• Becky Hutchins, R-Holton, retires after 6 terms.
• Joann Freeborn, R-Concordia, retires after 7 terms.
• Kathe Decker , R-Clay Center, leaves after 4 terms to join the GOP gubernatorial ticket of Ken Canfield, Overland Park, as his lieutenant governor running mate.
• John Edmonds, R-Great Bend, retires after 5 terms.
• House Speaker Doug Mays, R-Topeka, retires after 7 terms. Mays had at one time announced that he was seeking the Republican nomination for governor but has since abandoned the race.
• Eric Carter, R-Overland Park, leaves after 2 terms to seek the Republican nomination for Kansas Insurance Commissioner.
• Scott Schwab, R-Olathe, leaves after 2 terms to seek the Republican nomination for 3rd Congressional District.      

Moderates:

• Ray Cox, R-Bonner Springs, retires after 7 terms.
• David Huff, R-Lenexa, retires after 5 terms.

Democrats:

• Bonnie Sharp , D-Kansas City, leaving after 5 terms to run as a Democrat for Kansas Insurance Commissioner.
• Nancy Kirk, D-Topeka, retires after 6 terms. 

Retiring Representative John Edmonds of Great Bend has been diagnosed with cancer and will be undergoing treatment. We send him our best wishes for a full recovery. As chairman of the Tax Committee and most recently the Federal and State Affairs Committee we have had the opportunity to work with John. While we have not always agreed (though sometimes we did) Representative Edmonds is known by us as one of the most fair chairman out there. Representative Edmonds has always treated everyone with the utmost respect. His respect and appreciation for the democratic process is his legacy. For that, we give him our thanks.

KNEA Legislative Contacts

Blake West, President
Mark Desetti, Director, Legislative and Political Advocacy
Terry Forsyth, Director, Political Action

The KNEA Lobby Team consists of elected leaders and staff. The Lobby Team welcomes member feedback on issues before the Legislature and on this site.