Start of session doesn’t inspire much hope

Gov. Sam Brownback stunned many last week by including no mention of the state’s fiscal problems in his State of the State address, leaving it to his budget director to administer first aid to the bleeding 2016 and 2017 budgets the next day.

In a speech with more than a dozen negative references to the president and Obamacare, and criticisms of local property tax rates and school spending, Brownback said nothing about the state’s revenue shortfalls or increased borrowing. What a sharp contrast from his State of the State speech in pre-tax cut January 2012, in which he aimed for an ending balance even more generous than the statutory requirement of 7.5 percent and advocated the state pay down its debt.

Now Kansas can consider itself lucky if it replicates that pre-Brownback $876 ending balance of fiscal 2010 he used to ridicule, instead of allowing for the roughly $475 million demanded by state law. Kansans apparently aren’t supposed to fret about that legal technicality, nor the heavier debt load of last month’s state record $400 million highway construction bond issue and last summer’s $1 billion pension bond issue.

If lawmakers’ first week back in Topeka holds true, in fact, the whole session may stand out for ignoring, downplaying, postponing and deflecting as much as possible.

So the political will now favors waiting until 2017 to replace the defunct school-finance formula, never mind districts’ struggle to cope with the insufficient block grants and need to know what’s next.

Tuning out the growing bipartisan cry to expand KanCare, Brownback last week lobbed the issue of improving rural health care to a working group led by Lt. Gov. Jeff Colyer.

Even as a legislative committee wisely approved an audit of Kansas’ privatized child-welfare system, it chose to overlook the ample evidence justifying investigation of whether the Kansas Department for Children and Families is discriminating against same-sex foster parents.

And there is no sign of legislative interest in acting on the polls showing faculty, staff and students at state universities, and Kansans generally, oppose the state law forcing campuses to welcome concealed firearms as of July 2017.

Meanwhile, the administration’s proposed budget fixes neglect the worsening inequity and insufficiency of the state’s tax policy and ignore the legislative intent behind the Kansas Bioscience Authority, the Children’s Initiatives Fund and the current transportation plan. And many severe funding needs remain unaddressed, including at the state hospitals and prisons.

With every seat in the Legislature on the ballot in August and November, though, GOP leaders want to get past last year’s 114-day session and tax hike and keep things short and low-key – if only the Kansas Supreme Court’s pending schools ruling and the state’s monthly revenue collections will let them.

This story was originally published January 16, 2016 at 6:06 PM with the headline "Start of session doesn’t inspire much hope."