Stop the shell games and fix Kansas’ budget

The irresponsible rush to pass the largest tax increase in state history came to a screeching halt shortly after 2 p.m. Monday in the Kansas House.

That’s when Republican and Democratic leaders looked at their colleagues before saying — and we’re paraphrasing here — what the hell do we do now?

As it turned out, they decided to punt the issue until later in day 109 of the 90-day session, trying to increase the chance of a final compromise. But that hope proved unrealistic, and more meetings were scheduled for Tuesday.

What’s going on in Topeka right now? Put simply, the Kansas Legislature is a convoluted mess.

First, lawmakers have been unable to agree on how to raise the $400 million or so needed to balance the state budget.

After the House rejected a few earlier plans, the Senate on Sunday narrowly passed a bill that contains a big jump in the sales tax and the cigarette tax, while also slashing income tax deductions available to Kansans. Unfortunately, the bill doesn’t eliminate the preposterous and ineffective income tax cuts given to thousands of businesses and aggressively protected by Gov. Sam Brownback, which have contributed to the state’s financial woes.

Second, Republican lawmakers can’t stay focused on fixing the budget and instead seem intent on pushing through last-minute, questionable proposals that could have troubling, unanticipated consequences in the future.

▪ Sen. Jacob LaTurner of Pittsburg early last week introduced a proposal that would force cities and counties to hold public elections before they could boost property taxes by more than the inflation rate. When asked why he hadn’t brought this idea up so it could have been vetted during the regular session, LaTurner said he had just thought of it over the weekend. True story.

The Senate, incredibly, put this mandate into its tax increase bill.

By Monday, aghast city and county leaders from across the state were pushing back against this shocking and unnecessary intrusion into how local officials balance their budgets.

Notice: This top-down mandate from Topeka is coming from state legislators who are unable to even handle that task. Also, the Senate isn’t allowing voters to have a say in the sales tax increase it wants to put in place.

▪ The Senate on Sunday endorsed eliminating sales and property tax exemptions worth hundreds of millions of dollars by late 2019.

Again, this action was taken after zero debate on the issue during the regular session, debate that could have featured testimony from schools, hospitals, nonprofit organizations and others affected by such an earth-shaking decision.

The bill does say a commission can review the exemptions and restore some of them. But that’s backward. The Star supports an orderly and thorough look at exemptions in the interest of fairness but not in this kind of accident-waiting-to-happen way.

▪ Finally, the Senate bill recommended a program that would allow corporations to receive tax credits for donating to private-school scholarships.

In a state where funding for K-12 public schools is on unsure footing, it makes little sense to promote the use of public funds to make it financially easier for Kansans to attend private schools.

Another matter also understandably slowed the legislative process Monday.

Some House members were waiting to scrutinize the Senate-approved measure, whose details reportedly were spread over more than 600 pages.

It would have been the height of bad government for bleary-eyed lawmakers to speedily vote on that bill without knowing what it really meant for Kansans and what traps might have been stuck deep inside its pages.

Eventually, the Legislature must fulfill its duties to the people of Kansas. Lawmakers need to approve reasonable revenue increases, including the requirement that business owners pay their fair share of taxes.

And lawmakers should strip out last-minute ideas that deserve much more study, say, in the 2016 session — which is getting closer all the time.

This story was originally published June 8, 2015 at 6:40 PM with the headline "Stop the shell games and fix Kansas’ budget."