• KNEA Legislative Agenda
• Legislative Issues
• Legislative Week in Review
• School Funding Central
• State Board News
• Take Action Now (LAC)
• Under the Dome Today

February 2, 2007

This week’s links:

Want to read what the legislators read?

Click here to read the At-Risk Council’s report.

Click here to read the report of the Technical College and Vocational School Commission.

Want to be a legislative know-it-all?

Subscibe to Under the Dome, KNEA’s daily legislative report.

Funding Issues:

At-risk dominates the week in funding talks – first in Senate Ed…

Early in the week the Senate Education Committee held a hearing on Senate Bill 68, a bill extending the non-proficient at-risk weighting.

Under current law, this weighting sunsets at the end of the school year. The weighting provides additional at-risk funding to districts for each student who is not eligible for free lunch but has not scored proficient on the math or reading state assessments. It was established primarily for the benefit of school districts with low poverty rates but is available to all school districts.

KNEA and KASB both testified in favor of the bill. The 2010 Commission, the At-Risk Council, and the Legislative Education Planning Committee all suggested that the weighting be extended for another two years and studied for its effectiveness.

…then in the Senate K-12 Task Force

The Task Force, which has spent a couple week focusing on at-risk funding, also talked about Senate Bill 68.

Senator Teichman referenced the recommendation to study the effectiveness of the non-proficient at-risk weighting and suggested that, even if the sunset were taken off indefinitely, the bill should include a requirement to review effectiveness.

Some members of the Task Force thought if the program had ongoing funding that meant the legislature would study it. Senator Hensley asked why one piece of SB 549 (last year’s finance bill) would be extended indefinitely while the others ended at the end of the three years.

A motion by Senator Vratil to support Senate Bill 68 failed on a vote of 3 to 4 with Hensley, Peterson, Schmidt, and Betts voting no; Teichman, Vratil, and Jordan voting yes. The Task Force then decided to simply take no position on SB 68. Those voting “no” wanted to keep their recommendation closer to that of the various commissions.

Teichman asked that the Task Force revisit the issue later this week. They will take it up for discussion on Thursday.

Senator Vratil then took the discussion back to his position on free lunch for at-risk funding purposes. Vratil’s contention is that there is no correlation between poverty and academic success.

Vratil would like to take the funding off of poverty and use only indicators that a child is “at-risk.” Under his proposal, a child would have to demonstrate failure or be in imminent danger of failing before a district would get at-risk funding.

Because school districts – particularly large districts with a high percentage of children in poverty – routinely use at-risk funding for class size reduction or all day kindergarten, it is not unusual to note that they are serving more students than they have students in poverty. Vratil’s plan would result in significant losses to high poverty districts thereby limiting the district’s ability to implement prevention programs.

Next up was Senate Bill 93 which provides for a cleaner, linear transition in the high-density at-risk weighting. The Task Force endorsed Senate Bill 93 which is supported by KNEA. The Senate Education Committee will hold a hearing on Senate Bill 93 next Tuesday.

Jordan then brought up the possibility of a grant program to encourage districts to work with community organizations that serve at-risk students to connect with the district. The Task Force indicated that were interested in exploring such a program and Senator Jordan will bring more information at a later date.

House Ed subcommittee considers accreditation and NCLB

A House Education Committee Subcommittee formed by committee Chairman Clay Aurand met on Tuesday to discuss and come to a conclusion about HB 2015. This bill was crafted ostensibly to decouple state accreditation decisions from No Child Left Behind.

The Subcommittee considered a number of issues including just how close the link between accreditation and NCLB is, and determined that, while they had some concerns, there was still more to find out.

KNEA spoke to the Subcommittee on the issues in HB 2015. Subcommittee Chairman Bill Otto asked KNEA lobbyist Mark Desetti to provide the committee with summaries of federal bills filed to change NCLB.

The subcommittee is recommending that a resolution be crafted calling on the State Board of Education to review NCLB and the reauthorization efforts and to make a report to the legislature next year on the implications for Kansas.

Full House Ed Committee also studies NCLB

The House Education Committee met the next day to hear from the State Department of Education on the No Child Left Behind Act and its link to the Kansas school accreditation system.

It was a long meeting! Legislators had lots of questions about the current and potential impact of NCLB as it goes forward. The meeting was scheduled just as a way to bring members of the committee up to speed on some rather complex and often confusing issues.

Tax Issues:

More tax cuts under consideration in Senate Tax Committee

The House Tax Committee held a hearing on HCR 5006 a constitutional amendment that would limit residential property valuation increases to the consumer price index.

It sounds good, doesn’t it? Except that local units of government – cities, counties, and schools – all depend on local property taxes. Valuation increases can be limited but such limits do not reduce the need for police and fire protection, road improvement, and other local government services including schools that are paid for primarily through property taxes.

If valuations are limited, then the only recourse left to cities, counties, and schools is to increase mill levies. So in reality capping your valuation will not decrease your taxes. It just makes local government officials look like evil tax raisers!

In this session, as in every legislative session, there are multiple tax cut or limit proposals but no discussion of how the state or local governments will keep up with services – services like schools, highways, public safety, and caring for the poor, disabled, or elderly – with the reduction in revenue.

This year there are over 30 bills now pending that would phase out or reduce a variety of business taxes, limit property taxes, and add sales tax exemptions.

What’s the bottom line for KNEA? We will not support decisions that erode the tax base for public education or other vital state services.

We specifically oppose the passage of HCR 5006 without a move to offset the loss in revenue to local  units of government. Since public education depends to a large extent on property taxes – both through the statewide 20 mill levy and through local efforts including the LOB, ancillary facilities weighting, the cost of living weighting, declining enrollment weighting and a variety of local bond issues – we cannot support limitations on property taxes that are not offset by other adjustments in the tax system.

KNEA continues to believe that the legislature should make a comprehensive examination of the entire tax system to ensure that our many provisions result in a system that will provide stable funding for all state services and that is fair to both citizens and business.

Bills moving along

Passed out of the Senate Ed Committee with a favorable recommendation:

Senate Bill 22 – matching grants for teacher preparation programs wanting to expand;

Senate Bill 23 – consolidation of a variety of teacher scholarships into one program.

No motion made to take any action:

SB 70 – letting neighboring school districts bring in buses to take students to their districts.

Other bills being heard

On timely teacher pay 

  The Senate Education Committee held a hearing on SB 109 which would allow school districts to pay teachers on the first regularly scheduled pay date. Current law doesn’t allow teachers to be paid until September so new teachers can work nearly two months before getting paid.

KASB and KNEA both testified in favor of the bill but no action was taken this week.

School safety amendments 

A second bill heard by the Senate Ed Committee, SB 129, would modify the school safety and security act by allowing law enforcement up to 10 days to investigate and report to the department of vehicles when a student brings a weapon, drug, or controlled substance onto school property or a school sponsored activity. In addition the proposal would allow failure to meet the 10 day timeline as a reason not to suspend the student’s driver’s license.

The bill came about after a case in which a student had served a suspension for one year and completed his term of probation only to find himself subject to a later one year driver’s license suspension when the school security force finally got around to notifying the department of vehicles.

KNEA supported the bill as a means to give law enforcement ample time to investigate while preserving the rights of the accused.

More work will be done on the bill to be sure that schools are kept weapon and drug free and that students are treated fairly. We’ll look for this bill to come back later with suggested amendments.

Dealing with nasty campaign calls

The House Elections and Governmental Organization Committee held hearings on two bills dealing with campaign phone calls.

The first, HB 2197, would require that express advocacy political phone calls – those advocating the election or defeat of a clearly identified candidate – contain a statement announcing the organization that paid for the call and require the phone vendor to keep records on who paid for the calls.

This is a little glitch in the campaign finance laws. Current law requires such notice on print materials but not phone calls. KNEA testified in favor of the bill as a campaign finance “clean up” measure.

The second bill, HB 2198, would ban all automatic political calls – the so-called “robocalls.” This last election saw a dramatic increase in the use of these calls and they were often quite nasty in nature. KNEA places one robocall in an election to our members urging them to vote.

KNEA urged the committee to consider a more limited measure that would address the nasty advocacy calls and still allow membership organizations such as KNEA and Kansans for Life and the political parties to make calls to their own members.

State Politics

Republican Party veers hard right at annual meeting

The Republican Party held its annual “Kansas Day” celebration last weekend and, despite the rejection by Kansas voters of the right wing of the party on election day (see the defeat of Jim Barnett, Phill Kline and Jim Ryun in particular), elected Kris Kobach to replace Tim Shallenburger as party chairman. Kobach, a law professor in Missouri and failed congressional candidate, is most noted for his anti-immigrant work.

Kobach, a representative of the furthest right wing of the Kansas Republican Party, has already managed a coup of Party leadership. Six of the eight seats on the Party’s executive committee are now held by board members of the Kansas Republican Assembly, the right-leaning splinter GOP group organized by the most conservative of Republicans. The only members of the executive committee who are not KRA members are Kobach and Ray LeBouef the one-time challenger to Democratic State Senator Greta Goodwin.

In his victory speech, Kobach told the assembled Party activists, "A party leader should never prostitute himself or his views merely in the quest for personal power," a clear reference to new Lieutenant Governor Mark Parkinson who switched parties to join the Sebelius ticket. Parkinson was Republican Party Chair in 2002.

In a response to the comments, Sebelius spokeswoman Nicole Corcoran said, "It's statements like that, that have led Mark Parkinson to leave."

Kobach has also reportedly suggested that the Party might target moderate Republicans for defeat; something that is never done. At one time the National Republican Assembly pulled the charter of the KRA for going after a pro-choice Republican.

To see just how conservative the new GOP state leadership is, just examine the proposed resolutions that were put off until summer because a Brownback staffer made a motion to adjourn the meeting:

• One resolution would express appreciation to Phill Kline for his anti-abortion work;
• A second resolution would express displeasure with Kansas National Republican Committeeman Steve Cloud for his politics and work on the RNC (Cloud backed moderate Republicans for office);
• A third resolution would censure Senator Sam Brownback for his “liberal” stance on immigration.

The conservative wing of the Party apparently believes that the appropriate reaction to their electoral defeat in November is to consolidate control over the Party and purge it of moderates. This is not good news for pro-public education Republicans.

The Chronicles of Rardin

House Speaker Melvin Neufeld appointed the House Committee that is reviewing the findings of fact in the 16^th House District. This is the race that Democrat Gene Rardin won over Conservative Republican Dennis Kriegshauser by four votes which turned into three votes after a recount. Kriegshauser went to court and, after a review by a Johnson County district judge, Rardin was again declared the winner by two votes.

Since the judge simply issues findings of fact the decision to review those findings goes to a special committee in the House of Representatives. That committee will decide to accept or overturn the judge’s findings and make a recommendation to the full House. Should the full House overturn the election, watch for all work to come to a grinding partisan halt.

The review committee is chaired by Republican Representative Mike O’Neal – Hutchinson. The two other Republican are Gary Hayzlett (Lakin) and Jene Vickrey (Lousiburg). Democrats are Tom Sawyer (Wichita ), Jim Ward (Wichita ), and Mike Peterson (Kansas City ).

Coming up next week!

Plenty to keep your lobbyists hopping!

Among the many bills getting hearings next week:

HB 2223: Grants to school districts for teachers pursuing ESOL endorsements

HB 2276: Another local property tax for some school districts (will we cap those valuations?)

HB 2227: Requiring an HPV vaccination for girls in 6^th grade

HB 2260: No lobbyists paid for with tax dollars (goodbye KASB lobbyists!)

SB 93: That linear transition at-risk bill (see funding issues)

SB 142: Changing the cost of living weighting calculation

SB 207: Mandatory kindergarten attendance and lowering the compulsory attendance age to 6

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.