Lawmakers: Challenges remain in 2018

Sept. 19--As Finney County commissioners prepare to formulate their own legislative priorities, they had a chance Monday to hear form area lawmakers, who reflected on the 2017 session and looked ahead on what is yet to come in 2018.

Reps. Russ Jennings, R-Lakin; Leonard Mastroni, R-La Crosse; Rep. John Wheeler, R-Garden City; and Sen. John Doll, R-Garden City assembled before the commission's to create a dialogue that will echo in the days ahead.

"We did this because we think it's important for our board to be involved in the legislative process from several different aspects," said Commission Chairman Lon Pishny, explaining that Finney County will be compiling its legislative platform in roughly the next month.

The Kansas Legislative Policy Group representing almost every county in western Kansas will be meeting next week. Commissioner Larry Jones is its president. Pishny said these are the types of conversations that inspire his own input when the Kansas Association of Counties meets in Topeka. He will be attending a KAC meeting later this week.

Jennings told commissioners that "being able to meet the demands of the core functions of state government" had become a "fiscal challenge" for Kansas.

"We were significantly low in terms of our revenue stream to meet expected expenditures," he said. "We were offered some options that ultimately were rejected, primarily because those options would have led to a much more significant long-term debt position for the state."

Through a tax bill that reversed income tax cuts put into place by Gov. Sam Brownback, the Legislature was able to restore some fiscal stability, Jennings said. He said it was a difficult vote for legislators, especially Republicans, who often champion tax reductions as part of their platform.

Jennings said that while the 2017 legislative session was "very long," he anticipates that the 2018 legislative session will be "substantially shorter," amounting to approximately 66 days. He added that "challenges remain," but the next session should be "much more manageable."

According to Wheeler, the 2017 legislative session that lasted 114 days cost taxpayers $143,000 a day.

Jennings said the Legislature still faces significant challenges in highway maintenance, not to mention school finance. He said the Legislature anticipates some additional revenue from the newest tax bill to maybe begin tackling some of those issues in 2018, but the extent of that revenue will not be known until after April 15.

Mastroni noted that the shift in policy climate has been created by the influx of Republican moderates.

A previous county commissioner in Rush County for six years, Mastroni now sits on the state's transportation committee. He said Brownback sweeps funding for transportation each year, leaving legislators little to work with.

"I am very concerned about transportation and roads, particularly out here in western Kansas," Wheeler said. He noted with the deteriorating condition of Kansas roads, "we are becoming more and more like Oklahoma, and it saddens me."

Mastroni said the transportation committee intends to travel to Dodge City sometime in late September, and from there conduct a tour of roads and bridges in the region. He said he is worried that Kansas will defer costs usually covered by the state to the county level, "and a lot of that is going to be who is elected governor."

Doll was not optimistic about the state's financial prospects in 2018.

"This year is going to be the roughest year we've had," he said. "We've had some tough years financially, but when we get the funding come in from '18, this year is going to be very difficult for us in Topeka financially."

Doll said that in 2017, the Legislature spent between $125 million and $140 million in interest alone. He added that since at least 2012, the Legislature has only increased spending on two things -- KPERS and Medicaid -- and both of those decisions were court-ordered.

"So it's not like we have been up there spending money. ... We have cut everything," he said.

Jones asked legislators what Kansas could do to "get the economy going," especially when neighboring states, such as Colorado and Texas, are faring much better.

Wheeler said that while Brownback's income tax cuts were similar to measures taken in Texas, Kansas "is not the vacation and traveling paradise that Texas is."

He added that by cutting funding to Kansas schools in an effort to stabilize the tax cuts, Kansans have been left with an insufficient education.

"We've compounded our problems, and in six years will take us a generation to correct," Wheeler said, explaining that cutting teacher salaries and eliminating teacher due process rights has hamstrung schools. "We have to make Kansas look good again, and I think that is going to be starting to happen when our credit rating is going up, as it is now, and people will start to notice that we are recovering from a failing experiment on a state level."

In other business:

--Commissioners approved a change to the insurance policy for county employees that would revoke the existing policy's grandfather status.

Under the new plan, the County will be able to add a $200 emergency room copay per visit, then have remaining ER services for the visit be subject to the member's deductible and coinsurance. The current plan allows employees to visit the emergency room virtually free of charge.

However, if the member is admitted to the hospital in conjunction with the emergency room visit, the ER copay is waived.

Employee deductibles will remain the same, and there will be no increase in premiums.

- The county commission authorized $10,150 for redesign of the Finney County website, $6,171 for an applicant tracking platform and $2,300 for recurring redesign services every fourth year.

- The county commission authorized the Public Health Department's IT update request for the purchase of six computers for $657,382.

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(c)2017 The Garden City Telegram (Garden City, Kan.)

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