Kansas House of Representatives
Volume 2013, Issue 6: February 18 - 22, 2013
In This Issue
- Snowy Week
- Veterans, Military & Homeland Security
- Repealing Bills Passed Last Year?
- Transportation and Highway Patrol Budgets
- More Interesting Bills in the House
- Keep in Touch
Snowy Week
As we near "turn around" day in the Statehouse, the House of
Representatives has only passed 38 bills out favorably to the Senate so
far. To date there have been 377 bills introduced in the House. The
snow on Thursday cancelled two days of hearings and working bills so we
have to finish the remainder by Wed at noon this coming week. The
Speaker of the House is maintaining his goal to have the session done in
80 days this year so we will have some long days this week to catch back
up.
Veterans, Military & Homeland Security
Tuesday morning I testified in the Senate Transportation Committee on
SB136 that would allow a veteran to place the designation of VETERAN on
their driver's license. The original version of the bill would have
put VETERAN into a hologram on the back and would have cost in excess of
a million dollars to design. After testimony by my Chairman of the
House Veterans Committee, the Department of Motor Vehicles, the Kansas
Commission on Veterans Affairs and several Veteran organizations, the
Senate worked the bill and passed it out favorably for debate in the
full Senate. Tuesday, we have the hearing for HB2309 which is the House
version of the bill in the Veterans Committee. Everyone seems to be on
board that similar to the other 42 states that offer this to their
veterans, it should be voluntary to place VETERAN on the front of the
driver's license for verification of status for veterans who have not
retired nor receive benefits from the VA. The bill also allows the DMV
to share the list of veterans with the KCVA so that they can build their
database of Kansas Veterans that they use to contact veterans about
earned benefits and programs available to them.
Veterans Committee also held a hearing on the grant funding for the
Veteran Service Representatives that are located throughout the Kansas
VA hospitals. The American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars
spokespersons did a great job explaining the history of the program and
its importance to the committee, which is made up of many freshmen
legislators this year who did not know about the KCVA or Veteran
Representatives. This program saves the state money by providing
American Legion and VFW employees and their office space to process
veteran claims and education assistance applications to the federal
system with over a 90% success rate of first time submissions. For a
small investment in the grant, the state pulls in hundreds of millions
of dollars to veterans in Kansas, our post secondary education, and our
economy.
Repealing Bills Passed Last Year?
This week in Corrections & Juvenile Justice Committee we had a hearing
on HB2277 that would repeal a bill we just passed last year. The bill
last year gave the Juvenile Justice Authority the ability to have their
own special investigators with law enforcement training and authority to
conduct searches, handle evidence, and make arrests. Last year the JJA
convinced the legislature that they needed this ability but now they are
saying it is too expensive to send the investigators to the training.
When questioned on the cost of the training, the answer was that the
actual training is free but the JJA has to pay the person for the 14
weeks while they are gone. The current statute states that it is up to
the JJA Commissioner's discretion if he or she even wants to have an
investigator.
Transportation and Highway Patrol Budgets
This week we worked on the budgets for the Kansas Department of
Transportation (KDOT) and the State Highway Patrol in the Transportation
& Public Safety Budget Committee. As usual, we started with the
Governor's proposed budget and made changes. The Committee did not
make much change to the proposed State Highway Patrol budget, but the
Committee Chair had the agency compile a list of all their funds to
figure out if they had enough already there to give the troopers a
raise. During the Highway Patrol's earlier testimony they had
stressed the difficulties they have faced with low recruitment due to
low pay and their inability to pay for overtime and holiday pay. The
committee determined that there was enough that could be pieced together
from the various funds to give the troopers a 5% raise in 2014. Now the
recommendation is at the House Appropriations Committee to see if they
accept it or possibly sweep the funds for something else!
When we started with KDOT our Committee Chair informed us and the
Secretary of Transportation that he introduced a bill to keep the four
tenths of a percent of sales tax that is supposed to go to KDOT's
T-WORKS plan in the State General Budget. The Secretary of
Transportation testified that if that bill were to pass, it may affect
our current bond rate because a dedicated funding source is important in
determining the ratings. The Secretary has requested an estimate of how
much money the state would lose if the ratings went down. The Secretary
also stated that he saved $13.5 million in salaries last year by laying
off 36 employees in August 2012 and then placing the agency under a
hiring freeze - Now when employees retire or quit, there is no
replacement. As the Committee worked the budget, the list of transfers
from the State Highway Fund to other agencies was pared down from the
Governor's proposal and 100 full time positions were cut. Some of the
transfers eliminated were: $3.5 million to the KBI for the initial
planning and engineering for their new DNA laboratory; a several hundred
thousand dollar transfer to The Adjutant General's Office of Emergency
Communication Fund; $5 million to the Affordable Airfare fund for
Wichita's airport; $9.75 million to mental health organizations; $15
million that the Governor says KDOT will save by absorbing the Kansas
Turnpike Authority; and a couple million dollars from KS Dept of
Wildlife, Parks & Tourism. These are recommendations to the full House
Appropriations Committee to accept or not and if they do accept them,
then they will either have to find the money in another part of the
budget or recommend eliminating the program.
More Interesting Bills in the House
As I make my daily review of the House calendar, some of the bills that
had hearings last week and some that are scheduled for the next couple
of days caught my attention as bills you may want to watch. HB2244 is
the follow up bill on the taxation of boats that Kansas amended its
Constitution for last November. HB2185 deals with the consolidation of
cities and counties. HB2271 changes municipal elections, makes them
partisan and moves them to even number years. HB2371 eliminates the
post secondary savings account incentive program that encourages low
income families to save for their children's college/technical school
tuition. HB2296 would raise the amount of money that lobbyists can
spend on elected officials and what they have to report. HB2210 deals
with changing your political party affiliation. Remember, you can watch
them all at kslegislature.org.
Keep in Touch
You can track my activities on my website www.meier4kansas.com, my
FaceBook page www.facebook.com/Meier4Kansas, and Twitter
www.twitter.com/melaniemeier. I am privileged and honored to be your
voice in the Kansas Capitol.
If I can ever be of assistance to you, please feel free to contact me at
home or in Topeka. My office is on the 4th floor of the Capitol, Room
451-S. To write to me, my office address is Kansas State Capitol,
Topeka, KS 66612. You can also reach me at the legislative hotline,
1-800-432-3924. Additionally, you can e-mail me at
melanie.meier@house.ks.gov. And do not forget to follow the legislative
session online at www.kslegislature.org.
If you need to directly contact a particular agency in state government,
you can find useful telephone numbers online at
http://da.state.ks.us/phonebook.
