The Kansas Policy Institute (KPI), which owns The Sentinel, conducted its annual non-partisan candidate briefings in Overland Park, Wichita. and Pratt.
CEO Dave Trabert led off the event held at Johnson County Community College with a discussion of the hot-button issue of property tax reform:
“It’s not just that the property tax increases are unnecessary. They’re also very unaffordable. (The chart below) is tracking the cumulative change in the actual tax on residential property. The average increase, statewide, is 31% over the last 4 years against negative income growth. Real (inflation-adjusted) per capita income across the state is down over the last four years. So, there’s a 32-point swing there between the tax increase on residential property and the ability to pay. That was the state average.
The map below shows a “misery index,” with darker shading indicating the worst affordability issues. Counties with the highest misery index, of 150 or higher, are mostly in the northern tier of counties. Four counties — Wallace, Lincoln, Cheyenne, and Brown — have a misery index above 170.
But despite overwhelming public support for property tax reductions, the issue failed again. Trabert said there’s enough bi-partisan blame for the failure to go around:
“96% of Democrat legislators said ‘No Thanks’. There are two senators, David Haley from Wyandotte County and Patrick Schmidt from Shawnee County, who consistently voted for assessment limits. Every other Democrat in the House and Senate voted against them, even though the vast majority of their constituents wanted. And Republicans don’t get off easy, because we have 81% of the voters say they want it, and we still get at least a quarter of Republicans saying, ‘No, I’ve got a better idea, or ‘I don’t want to do it. There are all kinds of rationales for it, but what it really comes down to is that a lot of these Republicans and Democrats almost admit they’re looking out for what’s best for local government.”
Trabert says a silver lining lies in the five-year-old Truth in Taxation revenue-neutral law, which requires public meetings and votes from local government to exceed property taxes from one year to the next, is helping, but taxpayers need additional protection from assessment and levy limits.
Statewide, Trabert pointed out again, both parties share the blame for a ballooning state budget that is $4.1 billion higher than it would be if it had kept pace with inflation and population growth since 2005. The graph below also refutes claims that the state budget was severely cut during the Brownback years.
General Fund spending jumped 49% over the last 5 years. The only real reductions were from proposals to spend more, and Traber said both parties are to blame: Republicans voted to spend more, and Democrats voted against budgets because spending wasn’t high enough. Projections from the Kansas Legislative Research Division show that deficit spending each of the next five years will have blown through more than $2 billion of the state’s surplus by FY 2030.
K-12 education issues covered at candidate briefing
Attorney and former Kansas House speaker Mike O’Neal spoke on education issues and says the “education establishment”, including the Kansas State Board of Education, errs in discounting the role of the legislature in setting policy:
“The state board has got it in their head somehow that any time the legislature proposes legislation to make education better, they’re encroaching on the state board’s authority. Nothing could be further from the truth. I’ve done a lot of research on this and written extensively on the relationship between the legislature, the state board, and local boards. I’ve researched every Supreme Court case, every attorney general’s opinion, and so I’m gonna give you a really brief overview of where we stand and why legislative involvement in education is so important. The first of those is Article 2, Section 1 of the Kansas Constitution, in that it vests all legislative authority in the House and Senate.
“In 1964, we had the voters vote on the new education article, and that’s Article 6 of the Kansas Constitution. Article 6, Section 1, vests with the legislature the authority to provide for intellectual, educational, vocational, and scientific improvement. By establishing and maintaining public schools. Section 2 of Article 6 states that the legislature shall provide for a state board of education, and the state board shall perform such other duties as may be provided by law. Anytime you see the expression or phrase as provided by law, they’re talking about the legislature. In fact, virtually 95% of what the state board’s authority is by virtue of legislative delegation.”
After reviewing the Montoy and Gannon court decisions that mandated more money be spent on K-12 education in Kansas, O’Neal delivered a stark assessment:
“Kids are still being left behind. Billions and billions and billions of dollars have been spent. With no result, no appreciable increase in the proficiencies of those kids. There is no relationship between the amount of spending and improving outcomes.”
Indeed, per-student spending increased much faster than inflation, going from a little over $13,000 per student to at least $19,000 for the year just ended, while ACT college readiness plummeted from 32% to just 17%.
O’Neal related that even when schools get the money, getting it to the classroom is a heavy lift:
“One of the things that we did goes back to the session in 2005. I was involved at that time, trying to come up with solutions. We were able to get into law, Legislature-Republican-controlled, governor-Democrat, signed a bill that included a provision that, of the new money that was gonna come in, 100%, should go to the classroom or for instruction. And ongoing, the state public policy would be that 65% of funds should be expended in the classroom for instruction. Okay? And it was a goal. We were not able to make it a mandate. The result of that was that it was largely ignored.
“At the time, the percentage was in the low 50% range. So let’s say two decades since…..What has been the result? Still, low 50%. The schools never allocated the funds that the legislature sent them in a manner that was consistent with the state policy of having that money go to the classroom. A cumulative effect of that shortfall? Over the last 21 years is now $13 billion. That’s money that the legislature appropriated. They did their job. They appropriated that money with the expectation that the funds were gonna be allocated in a manner that was reasonably calculated to get the results that we wanted. And the schools, the administration and the local boards did not do what they were supposed to do.”
O’Neal offered the irony of K-12 schools throughout Kansas claiming they are underfunded each year, while possessing stunning amounts of cash reserves; funds not earmarked for federal programs, capital improvements or debt service. Information on individual school districts budgets and cash reserves is available at kansasopengov.org.
O’Neal concluded the education portion of the candidate briefing by noting heartbreaking academic outcomes:
“In 2015, there were approximately 99,000 students with a limited ability to read. Fundamentally, that’s the basis for education; we start with literacy, and we build on it. By 2024, that number is 152,000 students with limited ability to read.
“The Department of Education has set a goal of graduation. They have not set a goal for proficiency. So, when they see percentages of growth in graduation, they all do a victory lap, pat each other on the back and say, ‘Look at our graduation rates.’ I’m sorry, folks, but we’re graduating kids that are functionally illiterate.”
Warning against unconstitutional laws and regulations
Samuel MacRoberts, Litigation Director and General Counsel for the Kansas Justice Institute, concluded the candidate briefing with a presentation on KJI’s successes in representing and supporting taxpayers who bring lawsuits against governments on constitutional grounds.
“I think that I have the world’s best job,” he began. “That’s because I get to sue the government every single day.”
KJI, also a subsidiary of KPI, is a pro bono nonprofit law firm that represents its clients and has successfully overturned state laws and regulations, including home-based businesses, unlawful search, and free speech, free of charge.
