JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Missouri Gov. Mike Parson wants to downsize the Department of Economic Development and move several hundred staffers to the Department of Higher Education.
The Republican governor on Thursday signed executive orders for the state government reorganization.
Parson says the goal is to pare back the Department of Economic Development’s responsibilities so the agency can focus on how to bring businesses to the state and develop a trained workforce.
Several hundred other staffers will also be moved to the insurance department under the plan. That agency would be renamed the Department of Commerce and Insurance.
Parson says the changes would bring the Economic Development Department down from about 865 employees to 165 employees.
The Republican-led Legislature has 60 days to disapprove of the changes or they will automatically take effect.
The cast of characters may be new, but the script taking shape at the outset of the Kansas Legislature’s 2019 session rings familiar.
Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly delivers her first State of the State speech on Wednesday night, flanked by Republicans House Speaker Ron Ryckman and Senate President Susan Wagle. JIM MCLEAN / KANSAS NEWS SERVICE
The new governor — Democrat Laura Kelly — proposes a budget that pays for her priorities. It highlights things that she believes her election shows that voters also want. Republican legislative leaders respond with what amounts to, Thanks, but we’ve got a better handle on what Kansans want.
Such give and take is typical at the start of a session, but this year’s is sharper because Kelly is a Democrat and the leaders of the Legislature are virtually all conservative Republicans.
The sharpness of those differences is evident when comparing the State of the State speech that Kelly delivered to lawmakers Wednesday to the Republican response given by Senate President Susan Wagle.
Kelly called on lawmakers to fully fund the state’s public schools by complying with a Kansas Supreme Court order and boosting the funding package passed last year to cover inflation. It’s estimated that would cost an additional $364 million over the next four years.
● Kelly: “The days of doing the bare minimum to fund our schools are over. It stops now. We are going to properly fund our schools this year. And next year. And the year after that. Every year, every month, every day that I’m governor.”
● Wagle: “(Kelly) would have us surrender to the edict of an unelected Supreme Court spending even more than the $1 billion increase already approved for public education through the year 2023.”
On Medicaid expansion
The governor said the budget she’s proposing will “pave the way” for expanding KanCare, the state’s privatized Medicaid program, to cover an additional 150,000 low-income, disabled and elderly Kansans.
She argues that the rejection of expansion by former Republican governors Sam Brownback and Jeff Colyer cost the state billions and put rural hospitals at risk. So she’s forming a bipartisan working group to “finalize a path forward.”
● Kelly: “To date, our failure to act has cost Kansas over $3 billion in federal funding. That’s 3 billion of our taxpayer dollars we’ve sent to the federal government that has gone to benefit other states. It’s $3 billion that could have helped save Kansas lives, Kansas hospitals, and Kansas communities.”
● Wagle: “Governor Kelly has proposed expanding Medicaid under a broken Obamacare system while many Kansans are already suffering from skyrocketing premiums in the individual marketplace. Now is not the time to spend money we don’t have on programs we can’t afford.”
The Affordable Care Act, often referred to as Obamacare, requires the federal government to cover no less than 90 percent of a state’s expansion costs.
Competing priorities
One of the top priorities for Republicans is the return of what they’ve labeled “the federal windfall.” That’s money that flowed into the state treasury because of changes Congress made in the federal tax code in 2017.
GOP leaders appear determined to quickly restore state tax deductions that some Kansans can no longer claim because of the federal changes. Not doing so, they say, would amount to a tax increase.
● Wagle: “The windfall from the Trump tax cuts belongs to Kansas taxpayers, not government. Gov. Kelly has vowed to fight the decoupling of federal and state tax deductions, but we are not backing down.”
Kelly isn’t spoiling for a fight. But she’s urging caution because of the bill’s estimated $90 million annual cost. She argues it would be more prudent to get a firmer grip on the state’s revenue situation before passing what she sees as a tax cut.
● Kelly: “We must be cautious, conservative and fiscally responsible. We must live within our means. Prioritize what matters most. Always look for ways to save. And always make sure our children come first.”
Kelly saved her strongest language for what she called the “reprehensible crisis” in the state’s foster care system. She pledged to restructure the Department of Children and Families to address chronic problems that resulted in the agency losing track of some children while failing to protect others from abuse. She called it a matter of “life and death.”
● Kelly: “In the last few years, nothing has made me more angry than the callous disregard some agency leaders demonstrated towards our vulnerable children and their families. The incompetence and lack of transparency we witnessed … put a spotlight on this reprehensible crisis. This is an emergency. These are our children in our communities facing abuse, neglect and worse.”
Kelly’s call for overhauling the foster care system brought both Democrats and Republicans to their feet in applause. Wagle and other GOP leaders say they’re willing to work with the governor to address the problems. But they warn that the money needed to fix them, when combined with Kelly’s other spending priorities, could put the state back in the red.
● Wagle: “The Republican majority in the Kansas Senate stands ready to work with our former Senate colleague, but not at the expense of Kansas families. Unfortunately, Governor Kelly’s first budget would squander our fiscal recovery with a massive spending increase.”
Reminding lawmakers of the “breathtaking years of crisis” caused by Brownback’s 2012 income tax cuts, Kelly said she was elected to “rebuild our state.” But, she said, she has no intention of spending down the state’s recovering balances or breaking her “no tax increase” pledge.
Reconciling her priorities with those of the Republican-led Legislature, Kelly said, will require a kind of bipartisan cooperation that has recently been in short supply at the Statehouse.
● Kelly: “While the time for fingerpointing is over, we’re not off the hook for the long-term consequences of past policy decisions. If we are going to succeed, I need your help to protect both sides of the budget equation until our fiscal health stabilizes. As many of you have already said, we must show restraint. Because, ultimately, we do not know what lies ahead.”
Jim McLean is the senior correspondent for the Kansas News Service. You can reach him on Twitter @jmcleanks.
OVERLAND PARK, Kan. (AP) — A black student is suing a Kansas school district, alleging that she was told she couldn’t perform with a school dance team during a school event because her skin was “too dark.”
Photo courtesy Blue Valley Northwest Dazzlers
Camille Sturdivant alleges in a lawsuit against the Blue Valley School District that she suffered racial discrimination and was ostracized from dance team events after she complained about how she was treated because of her race.
Sturdivant graduated in May 2018 from Blue Valley Northwest High School, where she was one of two black students on the 14-member Dazzlers dance team.
She also contends the dance team’s coach was fired last year because of racial comments she made about Sturdivant.
The school district said in a statement that it doesn’t tolerate discrimination.
LINCOLN COUNTY – The Kansas Bureau of Investigation (KBI), along with the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office, asks anyone with information related to the disappearance of Glenna Bullard to come forward.
Glenna Bullard. Photos courtesy Kansas Bureau of Investigation
Bullard is a white female, 5 feet 11 inches tall, weighing approximately 180 pounds. She has brown hair, and green eyes.
Bullard was last seen in the area of Kansas Highway 18, and Kansas Highway 14 in Lincoln, Kan. on Nov. 1, 2017.
She was rumored to have headed to Texas, but made no contact with relatives in Texas. Bullard was seen traveling in a blue, single-cab pickup around the time of her disappearance.
Law enforcement are concerned for her welfare, and ask anyone with information about Bullard’s disappearance to contact the KBI at 1-800-KS-CRIME. Callers may remain anonymous.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — A Kansas City couple is suing the state of Missouri over restrictions on their ownership of loaded firearms.
James and Julie Attaway allege in the lawsuit that the Missouri Department of Social Services’ firearms policies violate their rights under the Missouri and U.S. constitutions.
Missouri doesn’t prohibit foster parents from possessing firearms if they are legally allowed to do so.
But foster parents must follow several restrictions, such as keeping firearms locked in areas inaccessible to children and storing firearms and ammunition separately.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Kansas City, says those restrictions prevent the couple from carrying loaded, functioning firearms.
The department said it doesn’t comment on pending litigation.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly’s proposed budget embraces a proposal to phase in a $364 million increase in funding for public schools over four years.
The Democratic governor also proposed Thursday to spend $14 million during the budget year beginning in July to expand the state’s Medicaid health coverage for the needy.
As Kelly outlined her budget proposals to legislators, she warned against pursing changes in tax laws. Income tax relief is a top priority for Republican leaders.
The education proposal is the State Board of Education’s plan for complying with a Kansas Supreme Court order last year.
Kelly proposed lowering annual payments to pensions for teachers and government workers. She also would take three years to end an ongoing diversion of highway funds to general government programs.
ST. LOUIS (AP) — Sen. Josh Hawley plans to move his family to a suburb of Washington D.C., but will keep a Missouri home in Springfield.
Hawley’s spokeswoman, Kelli Ford, said in a statement Thursday that Hawley and his wife decided to move with their two young sons to Washington so they could be together while the Senate is in session.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports the Hawleys will move their Missouri home to Springfield, where the senator’s parents and sister live. They plan to split their time between Virginia and Springfield.
Hawley, a Republican, defeated Democrat incumbent Claire McCaskill in the November election .
Missouri’s other senator, Roy Blunt, also lives in a Maryland suburb of Washington D.C.
MANHATTAN, Kan. (AP) — A judge has found sufficient evidence for a Kansas man to stand trial in the killing of a confidential drug informant whose body was found by deer hunters.
Steven Meredith -photo KDOC
Steven Meredith, of Junction City, was bound over for trial Wednesday on charges of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder in the death of 48-year-old Carrie Jones.
During the preliminary hearing, witnesses testified that Meredith believed Jones might reveal information about him and others in a 2013 drug-related case. One witness testified that Meredith told her that he and another man drove Jones to a field, forced her to get out of the vehicle and then shot her.
He was arrested almost a year after her body was found in October 2017 in rural Riley County.
DENVER (AP) — A professional bull rider died after a bull stomped on his chest during a competition at the National Western Stock Show in Denver.
The Professional Bull Riders say Mason Lowe died Tuesday evening after being taken to a hospital. Group spokesman Andrew Giangola said he was wearing a mandated protective vest.
The 25-year-old from Exeter, Missouri, was ranked 18th in the world.
He was injured while coming out of a chute on a bull weighing about 1,700 pounds and attempting to stay on for eight seconds.
A witness told KCNC-TV that Lowe fell off and was stomped as he tried to get up.
Professional Bull Riders CEO Sean Gleason says the group and the stock show extend sympathies to Lowe’s family.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — New Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly told Kansas legislators Wednesday that the state faces an emergency in its child welfare system and is “completely unprepared” for the next national economic downturn.
Governor Laura Kelly delivers her first State of the State address Wednesday
Kelly outlined an agenda for the Republican-dominated Legislature that includes increased spending on public schools and expanding the state’s Medicaid health coverage for the needy. Yet she also told lawmakers that she will honor her pledge to balance the budget without raising taxes.
Her first State of the State address , two days after taking office, sets up a clash with top Republicans. She did not mention their top priority — income tax relief — and appeared to try to dampen enthusiasm for it by declaring the state’s recovery “fragile” and saying, “We must be cautious.”
But Kelly’s tough tone was the most notable element of her address to a joint session of the House and Senate. Governors have routinely declared in their addresses that the state is sound or strong. Kelly described it as “improving” and declared, “I was elected to rebuild our state.”
“It won’t be easy. We all know we have a very, long, challenging road ahead of us,” Kelly said near the end of her 37-minute address. “These past eight years have been a hardship, no doubt about it.”
The address continued the scathing criticism of her Republican predecessors that marked her successful campaign for governor last year. Former conservative GOP Gov. Sam Brownback successfully pushed Republican lawmakers to slash income taxes in 2012 and 2013 as an economic stimulus — and persistent budget problems followed.
Kelly was a veteran state senator from Topeka and was a key player in a bipartisan effort in 2017 to reverse most of the Brownback tax cuts. She told legislators Wednesday evening that the tax cuts resulted in a “self-inflicted budget catastrophe” and, along with the Great Recession, “a “decade of crisis” in state government.
“Another recession will soon be upon us. It’s not a question of ‘if.’ It’s a question of ‘when’ and ‘how bad,'” Kelly said. “Kansas finds itself now completely unprepared. We have no margin for error.”
Top Republicans shrugged off her slashing assessment of the past eight years and noted that Kansas expects to finish its budget year on June 30 with about $900 million in cash reserves, equal to 12.6 percent of the spending with general tax revenues.
But the same projections from legislative researchers also show that even without the new spending proposed by Kelly, those reserves dwindle and disappear within three years. In the official GOP response , prepared before the governor’s speech, Senate President Susan Wagle, a conservative Wichita Republican, argued that the Democratic governor is setting a course to “squander our recovery” with excessive spending.
“She just whipped out the credit card,” Wagle said after the address.
Kelly reserved some of her toughest remarks for the foster care system for abused and neglected children and the state Department for Children and Families. She said the department had been “decimated by ideology and mismanagement.”
The governor said her budget proposals, to be outlined for legislators Thursday, will include millions of dollars more for programs aimed at helping troubled families and for the department to hire additional social workers. She read the names of three children who died in recent years in abusive homes despite reports about them to the state.
“These were our children, in our communities,” she said. “And I refuse to forget them.”
But House Majority Leader Dan Hawkins, a conservative Wichita Republican, said former GOP Gov. Jeff Colyer’s administration, which followed Brownback’s, deserves some credit for improvements at the department in the past year.
Kelly made a pledge to increase spending on public schools a key part of her campaign. Legislators last year enacted a law to phase in a $548 million increase in education funding over five years to meet a Kansas Supreme Court mandate in an ongoing lawsuit. But the court said it wasn’t enough because it didn’t account for years of inflation.
While the governor promised “we’re going to properly fund our schools” and pushed lawmakers to act quickly, she and her staff did not provide a figure. The State Board of Education has proposed phasing in another $364 million increase over four years.
Top Republicans are resisting the idea.
“We also know that there’s a lot of other needs across the state,” said House Speaker Ron Ryckman Jr., a conservative Kansas City-area Republican who joked in a toast at Kelly’s inaugural ball Monday night that to fund schools, Kelly would “have Mexico pay for it.”
GOP leaders also oppose Medicaid expansion , arguing that it is potentially costly even if the federal government promises to pick up most of the expense. Kelly argued that it would help both needy families and rural hospitals, but even though she devoted nearly six minutes of her address to her pitch, Republican leaders were unmoved.
Top Republicans want to adjust state income laws to prevent some Kansas residents from paying more to the state because of federal tax changes at the end of 2017 championed by President Donald Trump. The Senate tax committee could vote on a plan as early as Thursday.
Wagle said in the GOP response that the “windfall” belongs to taxpayers, “not government.” But House Minority Leader Tom Sawyer, a Wichita Democrat, said uncertainty about the windfall’s size makes it “way too early” to consider tax legislation.
