To avoid furloughs, Kansas lawmakers temporarily declare all state workers ‘essential’
The Kansas Legislature rapidly pushed through a bill Saturday to avert a midnight government shutdown, with Gov. Sam Brownback signing it despite concerns about its legality.
All the while, lawmakers still couldn’t resolve tax-and-budget issues.
The bill heads off furloughs for more than 24,000 state employees by defining them all as essential. Emergency furloughs triggered by the end of a budget year apply only to workers deemed nonessential to state operations.
Employees were notified Friday that they would be furloughed if the Legislature did not approve a budget and a tax plan to pay for it before Sunday.
“It is past time for the Legislature to act,” Brownback, a Republican, said in a statement.
Meantime, the Senate rejected yet another plan for raising taxes while the House debated a rival proposal for balancing the state budget and solving the state’s $400 million deficit for the next fiscal year, which begins July 1.
The key differences in the measures being debated Saturday were in how much they would increase business taxes and the state’s 6.15 percent sales tax.
The Senate voted 34-5 against a plan to raise the sales tax to 6.55 percent and increase business taxes by $24 million during the coming fiscal year. The business tax increase was the largest Brownback has said he’ll accept.
The House was considering boosting the sales tax to 6.5 percent and business taxes by $62 million.
Without a new budget, the state has no legal authority to pay employees for work after Saturday. Employees’ compensation lags several weeks behind their work, so their pay for the two-week period beginning Sunday won’t be distributed until early July.
The bill approved by lawmakers lets them state employees stay on the job for the next few weeks. They would get paid on time if a budget is in place at the start of the new fiscal year.
“It’s kind of the prettiest baby in the ugliest baby contest,” said Senate Ways and Means Committee Chairman Ty Masterson, a Republican from Andover. “It’s probably not the best way to do it because, quite frankly, it doesn’t authorize payment, but it does allow them to work.”
Masterson and other top Senate Republicans had considered pushing for a bill financing all of state government for an additional two weeks, viewing the bill declaring all employees essential as only a “feel-good” measure. But lawmakers had to do something by midnight Saturday to head off furloughs.
The House earlier this week approved a proposed $15.5 billion budget for the next fiscal year that would leave the state with a $406 million shortfall, but Republican lawmakers are sharply divided over raising taxes to fill the rest of the gap. Unlike the federal government, the state is required to pass budgets without deficits.
Saturday was the 107th day of lawmakers’ annual session. Plans to return to the Capitol Sunday means this year’s sesson would exceed the 2002 session as the longest ever. Each extra day this year has cost the state more than $40,000.
Legislators also have never waited this late in the year to wrap up their work on the next budget.
Sen. Vicki Schmidt, a Republican from Topeka, said she is insulted that state workers would “be used as pawns” in the impasse over budget and tax issues.
“We should not risk the livelihoods of our state employees because we couldn’t come to a consensus,” she said.
State agencies and universities sent furlough notices Friday to at least 24,200 employees. But public school employees or judicial branch workers weren’t included because budgets for those agencies have already been signed into law.
The percentage of workers receiving furlough notices varied by agency. Department of Administration spokesman John Milburn said it averaged about 40 percent for the agencies under Brownback’s direct control.
Kansas’ largest state employees union had promised to file a legal challenge if furloughs were enacted.
Furloughs normally are negotiated with state employee unions with 30 days’ notice given to workers before they go into effect, said Rebecca Proctor, executive director of the Kansas Organization of State Employees. The administration has said the notification requirements can be waived because the current situation meets the criteria of an emergency.
“I don’t see how anyone in good conscience can argue that this is an emergency,” Proctor said.
This story was originally published June 6, 2015 at 8:45 PM with the headline "To avoid furloughs, Kansas lawmakers temporarily declare all state workers ‘essential’."