By NICK BUDD
Hays Post
State legislators in western Kansas are already gearing up to fight for rural issues and values in the upcoming legislative session in Topeka.
On her path to a second term, 111th District Rep. Sue Boldra, R-Hays, emphasized that Topeka gets bogged down in battles between rural and urban legislators as opposed to the traditional partisan battle that is seen on the national stage. She said she continues to stand true on the idea that some urban legislators simply don’t understand the issues that face rural communities as she readies to take the 200-mile trip each week to Topeka.
“We have to make sure those urban legislators understand what happens out here in rural Kansas because they don’t,” Boldra said. “They just don’t understand what we do out here. It just looks like a lot of open and empty space to them.”
The Hays High School government teacher turned lawmaker notes one of the biggest issues within this battle is education. As local school bond issues fail and some rural populations continue to shrink, Boldra said school consolidations aren’t necessarily the answer and some urban legislators just don’t understand the associated hardships. She also said she would like legislators to revisit the idea of implementing all-day kindergarten.
“We can’t ask our children to stay on the bus for long amounts of time just to go to school each day,” Boldra said. “They don’t understand the concept of driving five hours to a baseball or basketball game in Liberal. They don’t understand how much immense space we have and what that means and why we pass some of the rules that we do.”
Depending on the outcome of the ongoing school finance court battles, legislators might have to fill another hole in school funding.
Earlier this year, the Kansas Supreme Court ruled there was an unconstitutional disparity in school funding. The court sent part of the Gannon lawsuit back to district court to determine what adequate funding was. Following the ruling, the state passed a funding bill that increased school funding by $129 million dollars. The bill also stripped a tenure mandate from state law and gave school boards the power to determine their own due process rules. Boldra voted against the bill.
“I hope that we can move forward on education including trying to bring back all-day kindergarten,” Boldra said. “I was very disappointed with that bill, and I think we’re going to have to go back and do some fixing during this legislative session.”
Legislators will also face another budget battle as they prepare to fill a projected $300 million budget shortfall for this fiscal year, which ends June 30. The Brownback tax experiment was driven deep into the heart of almost every statewide election this past year, including Boldra’s race against Democrat James Leiker of Hays. Several Republican legislators are saying the tax plan championed by Gov. Sam Brownback might have to be revised. In the 2012 legislative process, Brownback and the Legislature approved eliminating almost all income taxes.
“We might have to look at doing some taxing,” Boldra said. “(In order to cover the deficit), we might have to bring some of those taxes back.”
Boldra and other state legislators will head back to Topeka where they will convene on Jan. 12 for the first legislative meetings. Boldra has asked House Speaker Ray Merrick, R-Stillwell, for the same committee assignments as she held last year — education, agriculture and natural resources, utilities and environment and utilities and telecommunications.