Clifford, Long Give Legislative Update

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The second of three planned Legislative Coffees took place March 15 at the Grant County fire station with State Representative Marty Long of Ulysses and State Senator Bill Clifford of Garden City providing updates on the inner workings of the state capitol in Topeka. Thirteen community members attended the meeting.

Long said the house and senate will be working hard until the first adjournment March 28.

“Until then we’ll be working bills that come over from the Senate and the Senate will be working bills that the House has sent to them,” Long said. “At first adjournment we’re done with most of the bills and they will be given to the governor and then we’ll leave the capitol for about 12 days and give the governor time to over the bills.

“She has three choices over that 10–12-day period – she has the choice of signing the bill and making it law, or she has the choice of doing nothing and it becomes law, or she has the choice of vetoing the bill.”

If the governor vetoes a bill, the House and Senate will return and has the opportunity to override any bill she may or may not veto.

Long said about 400 bills have been introduced, and of those about 100 have been passed by both the House and Senate. Long specifically mentioned a bill that has come out of the House Tax Committee and was passed by the full House in regard to property tax.

House Bill 2396 Authorizes the use of a protest petition to limit funding of a taxing jurisdiction by property tax revenues exceeding a certain amount, establishing the acknowledging stewardship of tax revenue and appropriations (ASTRA) fund; authorizing certain transfers from the state general fund to qualifying cities and counties and eliminating the revenue neutral rate requirements by taxing subdivisions and the taxpayer notification costs fund.

“The Kansas Legislature has a funny way of not staying in their lane and wanting to dictate how local governments tax your tax property tax and this bill starts in with that once more,” Long said.

The bill stops the current revenue neutral rate procedure that cities and counties have.

“That will be no longer,” Long said. “The notices that were sent out to taxpayers as a result of revenue neutral will cease.”

The bill passed the House 115-6, meaning it was bipartisan. The bill is now being heard in the Senate.

“The first thing 2396 does is the State of Kansas takes $60 million and  puts it into a trust fund, that trust fund is then available for each city and county to draw their portion of the trust fund if (a percentage of) budget to their taxpayers that doesn’t exceed the amount of money that they got the previous year plus 3% for inflation,” Long said. “If your city or county passes a budget and it’s the same amount of money as it was the previous year, plus the rate of inflation, hey can draw their portion of the $60 million. So, there’s an incentive for cities and counties to keep their budgets low because they will get a demand transfer from the state.”

Long said the $60 is affordable this year but he hopes it will go up in the future.

The second thing HB 2396 does is create a mechanism where if a city or a county decides it doesn’t want its portion of the $60 million and raises its budget and it exceeds the previous year, taxpayers are able to go to the county treasurer’s office and sign a petition to stop the budget.

“The petition has to be signed by a number equal to the number of voters that voted in the previous presidential election,” Long said.

Long said there are also some bills that deal with appraisals that, if passed, will be constitutional amendments which would put them on the ballot. The House version limits home appraisals to a 6-year rolling average and the Senate version has a 3% cap.

The next Legislative Coffee was originally scheduled for April 19, but is to be determined due to Easter.