By BECKY KISER
Hays Post

Six prominent women politicians in Kansas — three Democrats and three Republicans — have come together in a grassroots coalition to “Reroute The Roadmap.”

They say Gov. Sam Brownback’s four-year “Roadmap For Kansas,” which phases out the state income tax, has put Kansas in financial trouble.

One of the six charter members of “Reroute The Roadmap,” Joan Wagnon is a former Kansas Revenue Secretary and now chairs the Kansas Democratic Party. Wagnon has been traveling across Kansas to “try to wake people up.”

According to Wagnon, “Right now there is a gap of about $300 million in every budget year that doesn’t come in to match what spending is right now.”

Those numbers come from former longtime state budget director, Duane Gosseen, who now writes the blog “The Kansas Budget.”

Closing the gap, Wagnon said, would require a doubling of the state sales tax.

“Faced with losing all the income tax, you have two choices — cut spending or find other revenue sources.

“What happens when the state doesn’t fund something is that it (the funding source) gets pushed down to the local level and that raises the property tax, or if they have the capacity, a local option sales tax (is implemented.) But if we were to replace all the state income tax, we would have to double it. Right now it’s 6.15 percent; we would have to double it to 13 percent.”

Wagnon added “whoever is elected governor Nov. 4 will have to make some difficult decisions.” More information is available on the group’s website www.rerouteroadmap.org.