Reports from Topeka

April 26, 2007

KTN Supporters & Friends,

The Kansas house will be debating their final budget today. The senate is taking up fiscal matters including the "crumbling classrooms," as well as budgets. Kansans better hang onto your wallets and purses, it is going to get expensive. Here's the spending spree update.

The house "omnibus" budget bill will pump $48.4 million more into the current year (FY 2007) budget before adding hundreds of millions more for FY 2008. Here are the percentages and my "green eye shade" apology for all of these dollars and percentages.

Going into this year's legislature, the state was scheduled to spend $5,585.5 million in the General Fund (this excludes highway and Medicaid spending). Despite the fact that this was an increase of roughly $1/2 a billion over the previous year, one of the house Democratic leader's succinct explanation of what the majority of legislators in both parties are doing was clear: "We spent it," said James Ward in a Wichita Eagle article April 22. The spending spree is alive and well at the Kansas statehouse with fiscally liberals shedding their so-called "moderate" tendencies. The growth in the Kansas economy is rapidly being spent.

The house's proposed spending hike plan would raise spending over $6 billion for the General Fund for the very first time taking it to $6,084.0 million or almost another $1/2 billion ($498.5 million). That's a 9.0% hike over the 2007 base.

This aggregate figure is not far out of line with the senate and Governor Sebelius' spending total proposals. The rub is in the details of specific spending. There are lots of differences between these three proposals for specific individual appropriations. If all of the various spending proposals are included, this total figure will have to soar. Kansas Taxpayers Network, Americans for Prosperity, NFIB, WIBA, TIBA, and other fiscally responsible groups are working with legislators trying to keep the total under $6 billion or about a 6% increase. Since fiscal conservatives are about as large a percentage in Topeka as they are in Washington, watch out for more spending.

This demonstrates how the fiscal train wrecks are occurring in Kansas. If tax collections are not growing rapidly, this spending spree could not occur without additional tax hikes.

The Wichita Eagle's ridiculous article blaming the $36 million in tax cuts enacted for the 2008 budget April 22 as the likely cause for future fiscal problems demonstrates the irresponsibility that permeates the statehouse spending culture. Needless to say, the mainstream Kansas press is not pointing out the latest in a series of fiscal milestones that are rapidly being passed as the "we spent it," mentality plays out at the statehouse (last year total spending in the All Funds budget topped $12 billion for the first time and we are a state with less than 2.8 million people in it!).

In addition, there is the issue of the Regents request for some huge amount, that could be as large as $727 million, in additional funding for the "crumbling classrooms" that the Regents are unable to maintain while spending over $1.8 billion a year in non maintenance/capital spending at those six university campuses. This spending is likely to be funded with state bonds, so expect another mortgage to be added to your taxable property in Kansas with these bonds. Naturally, since this is Kansas, voters will not have any opportunity to vote on these new state bonds. Voters are largely disenfranchised in Kansas while most other states require voter approval before the state can issue bonds (or enact casino gambling) or make other major changes.

The single most egregious example of wasteful "crumbling classroom" spending was $1.4 million for six presidential mansions on these campuses. There was also wasteful spending proposed for sports facilities, airport hangars for institutions not teaching flying, golf shops, etc.

KTN supporters who have not discussed their feelings about Kansas state fiscal policy are about to lose their last chance for the 2007 legislature. Please make sure to read your April, 2007 KTN update. Please feel free to forward this to other fiscally concerned Kansans.