By BECKY KISER
Hays Post
Kansas lawmakers return to Topeka Monday to begin their 2024 annual legislative session.
The House and Senate are scheduled to gavel in at 2 p.m. for what is often a ceremonial first day.
Democratic Governor Laura Kelly will deliver her State of the State address Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. and is expected to touch on her legislative priorities.
Her budget proposal will be available to legislators Thursday morning.
Kancare expansion
While Medicaid expansion remains a top goal for Gov. Kelly, area state legislators don't expect the issue to get much traction.
The governing bodies of Hays and Russell recently issued resolutions supporting the expansion of KanCare, as the federal Medicaid program is known in Kansas. Town leaders highlighted the increased jobs and funds to local hospitals that an expansion would bring. The resolutions were spearheaded by the governor's office and the Kansas Department of Health and Environment.
"I don't think the commissioners have all the information they need," said Rep. Barbara Wasinger, R-Hays, 111th District, a former Hays and Ellis County commissioner. "I appreciate what they're thinking. Although I don't agree with it, I'll certainly listen to their concerns."
Kansas is one of 10 states that has not expanded Medicaid.
Sen. Rick Billinger, R-Goodland, 40th District, has previously supported the measure.
There are 13 hospitals in his district. All are critical care access except for HaysMed. The Hays hospital is a tertiary care center.
"I hope for a deal to be worked out between leadership and the governor," Billinger said.
Rep. Troy Waymaster, R-Bunker Hill, 109th District, said last week.. "Everything I'm getting from leadership in the House and the Senate is that it will not be discussed. That has been circulating quite some time now but you never know. It could come to [either] floor as an amendment."
Waymaster, chairman of the Appropriations Committee, said the reason leadership is not supportive is because they see it as an expansion of governmental services that would cost the state money.
"It's also been mentioned that they don't believe Medicaid expansion is beneficial to the state of Kansas," he said.
Medical marijuana
However, on another health front, Waymaster does foresee the possibility of the Senate discussing medicinal marijuana.
"We've discussed it in the House, and it's actually passed our chamber twice, I believe, but the Senate has never taken it up for a vote," he said.
Election 2024
All House and Senate seats in Kansas are up for re-election this year. Rep. Ken Rahjes, R-Agra, 110th District, filed late last week to run again.
The budget
The state's budget balances are in good shape, a surplus in excess of $3 billion, even though last month's revenues were $48 million below projections.
That concerns Billinger, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee.
"This is my eighth year to be involved in the budget. We've managed to improve it every year," he said. "I think one of the things we'll look at is our ending balances and make sure we don't get carried away in trying to do too much ... There's a lot of concern that I have that we don't have a real bad downturn and get into a predicament where we won't have sufficient funds.
"Right now, I think we're in great shape," Billinger said.
"We [also] have a rainy day fund that's over a billion dollars. We've been trying to be very fiscally responsible. We've paid off a lot of debt over the last couple years. We've focused on one-time spends and reduced a lot of our bonding.
"There's gonna be a day when we have a downturn and we wanna make sure we've attained the best position that we can so we're not having to raise taxes just to pay the bills," Billinger said.
Special education funding
More than two-thirds of the state's budget goes toward funding education.
Special education funding in K-12 has been a challenge.
On Friday, a task force created by the Kansas legislature endorsed a four-year plan adding $82.7 million annually in appropriations to local school districts to comply with a law requiring the state cover 92 perecnt of extra costs for serving gifted and disabled students.
Tax relief
Billinger and Rahjes want to help counties reduce their property taxes, as do Waymaster and Wasinger.
Rahjes said there's been a big effort by many county commissions and the Kansas Association of Counties to implement the ad valorem tax back to the counties, ultimately resulting in some tax relief directly from the state to property owners.
"I think that's one that will have a proposal. I know there's going to be a proposal once again to cap property valuation appraisal rates at no more than 4 percent," Rahjes said.
"On paper that sounds really good, but in reality, I think most people understand there is a role for taxes for roads, bridges, police, fire, etc. ... But people need to realize, as we talk in town halls, the state could do all this but what services don't you want then?"
Billinger also plans to work on eliminating Kansas income taxes on social security and removing various taxes for military veterans.
"It's a way of helping our seniors," he said.
When it comes to income tax, Wasinger favors changing to a flat tax rate for Kansans.
Rahjes expects to see discussion again supporting a single tax rate "but we have to be very cautious so we don't repeat some of the errors of last time when we did a massive tax reduction and the economy did not grow."
Judiciary hack
Wasinger said she expects much of her time in the statehouse to be taken up as chairman of the Legislative Modernization Committee, a bipartisan committee created last year.
"We started looking and quickly found any changes we wanted to make in the capitol would have to go through our IT Department. ... We started talking that the executive, legislative, and judicial branches need to be working together on IT," Wasinger said.
Then the judiciary got hacked.
"We went into hyperdrive," Wasinger said. "Every agency in the state of Kansas needs to look at how we set up each IT department. ... I talked to the chief justice about how we particularly realize that we need to be doing something as a group."
The Kansas judicial branch phased restoration of the Kansas eCourt case management system in district courts continued at the end of December.
Governor's Task Force for Wildfires
Waymaster served on the Governor's Task Force for Wildfires, which recently submitted its report regarding the response to the 2021 Four-County Fire in Ellis, Rooks, Russell and Osborne counties.
He said he doesn't support everything that is recommended in the report, but "we'll see exactly what we can do to have the state have a better response in regards to wildfires."
One thing Waymaster said he is pushing for is a more structured response by the state in cases of natural disasters.