Adventures in the Statehouse, Vol 2013 Issue 15

Melanie Meier's Adventures in the Statehouse
Kansas House of Representatives
Volume 2013, Issue 15: May 20-24, 2013

In This Issue

- Going Overtime Over Taxes
- Passed A Few Conference Committee Reports
- Governor Vetoes Charitable Raffles
- Keep in Touch

Going Overtime Over Taxes

Unfortunately, this last week did not see much progress toward bringing
the session to a close. There was no action on the budget. There is no
constitutional requirement to raise sales tax and the legislature can
balance the budget without raising taxes or cutting your deductions this
year; but the Governor is still saying that he will veto any budget
passed until a tax bill is passed to raise taxes.

Most of the week was a show down between the House and Senate members of
the Tax Conference Committee. So far the biggest concession made by the
House is a proposal to raise the state sales tax rate to 6%. The Senate
proposals have fluctuated between 6.3% and 6.25%. The Senate's
biggest concession was a proposal to move the sales tax rate on food to
4.95%. At one point, the Senate abandoned the negotiation table,
debated their own proposal, and passed out a bill with which they hoped
the House would concur. The House did not concur (with a vote of 5 to
109), so now we are back at square one.

Passed A Few Conference Committee Reports

The House voted on four conference committee reports this week. They
all passed and are on their way to the Governor's desk for signature
or veto.

1. HB2213 also contains the contents of HB2352. It makes technical
changes to the bill on KPERS passed last year and adds amendments to the
Retirement System for Judges and the Kansas Police and Fireman's
(KP&F) Retirement System.

2. HB2162 is no longer a bill about elections. It now prohibits the
use of state money to lobby for or against gun control, aside from
normal and recognized executive and legislative relationships. That
means that people who receive state money can still introduce
legislation and testify in hearings, but there can be no radio, tv ads,
or mailers (think of public awareness campaigns against smoking or
teenage drinking or texting while driving, etc. that State governments
have spent money on).

3. HB2199 makes several changes to the laws on alcoholic beverages. It
allows licensees to provide free samples; allows hotels to give coupons
for free drinks at the hotel bar; allows the sale of 64 ounce pitchers
of certain mixed drinks (such as margaritas and sangria); allows liquor
stores to conduct tastings; and more. It also includes some changes to
the requirements for obtaining a liquor license.

4. HB2149 eliminates a $500,000 transfer from the Highway Patrol
Training Center Fund to the
State General Fund that occurs each fiscal year. All monies credited to
the Highway Patrol Training Center Fund will now remain with the Highway
Patrol.

Governor Vetoes Charitable Raffles

On Thursday, May 23rd, the Governor vetoed HB2120. It was a combination
of 3 bills: 1) technical updates to the methods of collection of DNA
evidence by the Kansas Bureau of Investigation; 2) penalty enhancements
to committing drug crimes while in possession of a firearm; and 3)
removal of charitable raffles from the criminal code's definition of
illegal betting. The Governor's veto message stated that he felt the
section on charitable raffles was in violation of the Kansas
Constitution; yet he voiced his support of the measure and encouraged
the Legislature to initiate a constitutional amendment.

The entire text of Article 15, Section 3 of the Kansas Constitution
says: "Lotteries and the sale of lottery tickets are forever
prohibited."

I am not a constitutional lawyer, but I am not sure how HB2120 violates
Article 15, Section 3. Article 15, Section 3 is not all encompassing
because Section 3c goes on to allow state owned lotteries. Is a raffle
the same thing as a lottery? There is no definition of lottery in the
Constitution, only in the statute that HB2120 was amending by adding the
definition of raffle.

The definition of a raffle in HB2120 says, "raffle" means a fundraising
event in which: (1) Participants donate or agree to donate something of
value for an opportunity to win something of value; (2) winning
opportunities are represented by tickets differentiated by sequential
enumeration; (3) winners are picked by a random drawing of tickets or
some other similar method of determining a winner or by a race utilizing
inanimate objects floated along a river, stream, canal or other body of
water; and (4) the raffle is conducted for the benefit of a nonprofit
organization, an agency of the United States government, an agency of
the state of Kansas or a political subdivision.

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.

Adventures in the Statehouse, Volume 2013 Issue 14

Melanie Meier's Adventures in the Statehouse
Kansas House of Representatives
Volume 2013, Issue 14: May 13-17, 2013

In This Issue

- Wrap Up Session Continues
- Passed Some Conference Committee Reports
- "What ifs?" on the Budget and Taxes
- Keep in Touch

Wrap Up Session Continues

The Legislature has passed day 80 of the 2013 Session. An 80 day
session was the goal set at the beginning of the Session this year, but
stalemate seems to have arrived in Kansas. The House and Senate Tax
Conference Committee met on Wed (their first since the wrap up session
started). The House offered a tax plan that would raise the sales tax
by half of what the Senate proposed during the session. The Senate
quickly turned it down. The Senate President had originally stated that
the Senate budget negotiators would not meet with the House negotiators
until the House passed a bill to raise the sales tax, but the conference
committee on the budget finally met this week also. The committee
started its negotiations between the House and Senate positions on at
least 99 lines of the budget and many proposed provisos. Although there
is no constitutional requirement to raise sales tax and the budget will
balance without an increase, the Governor has warned that he will veto
any budget passed until a tax bill is passed to raise sales taxes. Day
90 will be on Thursday, May 23rd.

The House did Pass Some Conference Committee Reports

The House voted on three conference committee reports this week. They
all passed and are on their way to the Governor's desk for signature
or veto.

1. HB2204 extends the judicial branch surcharge for two more years and
allows the judicial branch to use the money to fund the support
staff's salaries. This bill was originally about mortgages but the
language was replaced with SB218. SB218 is the bill that would have
also taken the portion of docket fees that go to organizations such as
CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates for children), the Kansas
Coalition Against Sexual & Domestic Violence, and Kansas Legal Services,
and sent it to the State General Fund. If that were to happen, all
these individual organizations would have to appear before the
Legislature to ask for money. That section was removed and HB2204 now
only extends the surcharge.

2. HB2115 is the combination of HB2115 and HB2114. It amends the rules
for temporarily hiring a retired judge when needed and it requires a
debtor to pay the cost of debt collection, rather than just deducting it
from the debtor's original debt to the court.

3. HB2249 is a combination of three bills, as HB2074 and HB2118 were
added. The original HB2249 provides a refund of property tax for fire
services if your property falls within two tax districts due to
annexation or boundary changes – intent is to protect a property owner
from being double taxed for fire services. HB2074 prohibits a city or
county from adopting restrictions on solid waste if such restrictions
interfere with another city or county that is serviced by the same
disposal site and requires the Sec of Health & Environment to prepare a
report on solid waste management with recommendations on legislative
changes and the cost associated with the changes. HB2118 removes the
requirement that proposed projects within 500 feet of a historic
property in the city and 1000 feet outside the city, be subject to
historic design and appearance restrictions. It restricts historic
reviews to projects that would involve, damage or destroy properties on
the national or state registries of historic places.

"What Ifs?" on the Budget and Taxes

Now that the large income tax cuts made last year are coming into
effect, it seems half the legislature has changed how it looks at the
budget. The Senate has become very concerned with the projections of
revenue out to 2018, but the House is still focused on the budget being
formed this session. While the Revenue Consensus folks (that the
legislature uses for future revenue projections in the budget process)
have been very accurate in the past, they normally just look one year
ahead. They do not have a track record for long term projections.

While the Senate is now insisting that the sales tax be raised to offset
the income tax cuts made last year and that "sales taxes do not matter
to economic growth," the House has not agreed. Kansas has the largest
state sales tax rate in our region (KS: 6.3%, MO: 4.22%, NE: 5.5%, CO:
2.9%, OK: 4.5%). This is especially concerning to communities such as
ours, on the border where it is easy for our residents to go next door
to Missouri to make their large purchases at a reduced sales tax rate.

The continuation of higher sales taxes will be used to counteract the
income tax cuts made last year, without giving Kansas the chance to see
if the promised results will come true. Will they produce thousands of
new jobs and entice more businesses to move to Kansas and spur economic
growth? Or, will a higher sales tax bring in the money to run our state
schools and public safety services, but possibly deter some businesses
from making the move for fear of lower sales? Or, will a higher sales
tax allow Kansas to go to zero income taxes without significant loss of
infrastructure? Will the House hold firm and give the tax cuts from
last year a chance? Maybe we will know by day 90.


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.

Adventures in the Statehouse, Volume 2013 Issue 13

Melanie Meier's Adventures in the Statehouse
Kansas House of Representatives
Volume 2013, Issue 13: May 8-10, 2013

In This Issue

- Back in the Capitol for the Wrap Up Session
- Passed Some Conference Committee Reports
- The Developmentally Disabled and KANCARE
- Keep in Touch

Back in the Capitol for the Wrap Up Session

The members of the Legislature returned to Topeka this week for the Wrap
Up Session. We are off to a slow start in regards to the budget – the
only bill that the Legislature has to pass each year. The newspapers
have quoted the President of the Senate saying that the Senate will not
meet with the House until the House agrees to the Senate's tax plan.
This may be a long Wrap Up Session! I am so happy that I had four pages
this week. They are a great help to the Legislators, bring a smile to
our faces and keep us on task.

Often this is called the Veto Session, but this year the Governor has
only vetoed one bill so far. SB37 was a non-controversial bill that
originally passed the House 102-17 and the Senate 36-3. It would make
the Kansas Home Inspectors Professional Competence and Financial
Responsibility Act permanent. In 2008, this Act created a temporary fee
funded board, and scheduled it to end in 2013, to give it time to see if
the board would be successful. The Kansas Association of Real Estate
Inspectors and the Kansas Association of Realtors spoke in favor of
SB37, stating the 2008 enacted consumer protection legislation has
worked well to assure that the public has access to home inspections
which are objective and competent. There were no opponents and no State
funds are used. In fact, this year there was $46,000 sitting in the
fund that is proposed to be swept into the State General Fund for the
fiscal years 2014 and 2015. In the Governor's veto message, he stated
that he saw "little evidence of large numbers of Kansas citizens being
economically harmed by home inspectors." He went on to say that he
believed the Home Inspectors Board simply adds unnecessary fees and
regulations to law abiding citizens. So far, there has been no motion
to try and override the veto.

Passed Some Conference Committee Reports

The House voted on six conference committee reports this week with
various subjects. They all passed and are on their way to the
Governor's desk for signature or veto.

1. HB2120 amends the criminal code concerning the Kansas Bureau of
Investigation's (KBI) collection of DNA samples, gambling crimes, and
a special sentencing rule related to firearms. The Conference Committee
Report contained three bills. The original HB2120 updated statutes on
the collection of DNA because DNA is now collected by swabbing inside
the cheek rather than through blood samples. SB148 was added, which
takes raffles conducted by non-profit organizations and government
entities out of the definition of illegal betting. SB41 amends a
special sentencing rule that applies when an offender carries a firearm
while committing a drug crime, changing the wording from "carries"
to "possesses a readily accessible" firearm.

2. HB2218 amends DUI statutes as to when law enforcement officers are
required to request a drug or alcohol test and includes the contents of
HB 2043, concerning aggravated battery while DUI.

3. SB20 makes updates and adjustments to the Kansas Offender
Registration Act. The conference committee created the report by
putting the contents of HB2209 into SB20, which was originally a bill
about poverty affidavits in lieu of docket fees!

4. HB2261 creates "Celebrate Freedom Week" in public schools for
kindergarten and grades one through eight, extends fund flexibility for
public school districts, and amends current law related to school
districts' bullying policies. This is a combination of three bills:
HB2261 , HB2222, and HB2280.

5. HB2081 adds the crimes of identity theft and identity fraud to the
Kansas Consumer Protection Act, allows a court to issue a temporary
restraining order or temporary injunction, modifies the requirements for
poverty affidavits, adds crimes to the list of crimes subject to
forfeiture of property used in the crime, and modifies the amount of
time required in a mortgage for redemption of property. This report was
a compilation of HB2081, HB2093, HB2204 and SB18.

6. HB2015 modifies how "marital gifts" are treated in divorce
proceeding, adds types of income subject to withholding for child
support, including one time payments and unemployment insurance
payments, and modifies procedures for collection of child support. This
report was a compilation of HB2015, HB2259 and SB125.

The Developmentally Disabled and KanCare

When we returned to the Capitol on there were over 1000 advocates and
developmentally disabled Kansans waiting for us. Last year, the
developmentally disabled were allowed to continue working with their
current community providers rather than falling under the new KanCare
system that turned over administration of the State's Medicaid
services to three insurance companies. This exemption ends in January
2014 and the families of the developmentally disabled are still not
convinced that putting an insurance agent between their loved one and
their non-medical service providers is the right thing to do. They
maintain that "KanCare is a program for managing medical services; but
IDD services are not medical services, and managing them as a medical
program will not save money, it will cost more." They have
recommended that the Legislature wait to include the non-medical
developmentally disabled community programs until KanCare gets on its
feet and/or a pilot program can be completed and evaluated in order to
make an evidence based decision.

On Thursday, May 9th, a Representative on the House Appropriations
Committee offered an amendment to the House version of the budget. It
was a proviso that states if the Developmentally Disabled are excluded
from KanCare like they are requesting, then they would not receive the
$4 million that the Governor recently proposed to use to provide
services to disabled Kansans currently waiting for services. The
Representative says he believes $4 million would be lost if the
non-medical services are not managed by KanCare. Advocates for the
developmentally disabled say this is a way to force them to fall under
KanCare and to stop their campaign against it. The Committee adopted
the proviso.



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.