BY JIM MCLEAN

One of the top Republicans in the Kansas Senate says it’s time to fix the causes of the state’s ongoing budget problems.

Sen. Jim Denning, an Overland Park Republican and vice chairman of the Senate Ways and Means Committee, said recurring budget shortfalls have convinced him that the income tax cuts the Legislature passed in 2012 aren’t working.

“We obviously went too deep. It’s not producing what I thought it would produce,” Denning said of the governor’s tax plan, which cut individual income tax rates and business taxes.

Denning is particularly critical of what he calls a “loophole” that exempted more than 330,000 business owners and farmers from paying taxes on pass-through income. Continuing a trend triggered by the tax cuts, revenue collections have fallen short in each of the first three months of the current fiscal year.

To date, collections for the budget year that began July 1 are running $61 million behind official projections. Making matters worse, collections are failing to hit revenue targets that have been lowered several times. When the state’s official revenue estimating group met in April, they lowered the 2016 revenue target by nearly $100 million.

The previous November, they lowered their final estimate for the 2015 budget year by more than $200 million.

“If these trends continue next month, we could have a zero balance in the checking account and that will by statute trigger the governor to cut,” Denning said. Faced with a budget crisis at the end of the 2015 legislative session, Gov. Sam Brownback blocked attempts led by

Rep. Mark Hutton, a Wichita Republican, to eliminate the business tax exemption. He instead pushed lawmakers to raise taxes to generate the $400 million necessary to balance the budget.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal in May, Brownback defended his push to raise sales and tobacco taxes rather than scale back his tax cuts. “If your objective is to grow the economy, would you rather put more money into government, or leave it in the hands of small business?” Brownback said.

Eileen Hawley, the governor’s communications director, said Brownback would continue to oppose attempts to scale back the income tax cuts or repeal the business tax exemption.

“The governor continues to believe that raising taxes on small businesses is not good policy for the economic growth of our state,” Hawley said. “As he has done every year since he became governor, he will present a plan to balance the budget when the Legislature returns in January.

The administration’s primary focus between now and then will be to hold the line on state government spending.”

The governor’s opposition won’t deter lawmakers from making another attempt in the 2016 session to repeal or scale back the business tax exemption and make other changes to stabilize the budget, Denning said.

“I think legislators – me included – are very fatigued from it,” he said, referring to the ongoing budget problems.

“I want to fix it, and I don’t want to mess around with the little Band-Aids that we were forced to do last year,” Denning said. “We’ve got to get our financial house in order.”

Jim McLean is executive editor of KHI News Service in Topeka, a partner in the Heartland Health Monitor team.

DETROIT (AP) — General Motors is telling owners of some SUVs not to use their windshield wipers because an electrical short could cause the motor to catch fire.

The company is recalling nearly 32,000 Buick Enclave, Chevrolet Traverse and GMC Acadia SUVs from the 2016 model to fix the problem.

Only 6,400 were sold and the rest are being held at dealerships until they are repaired. Most are in North America.

GM says if weather stops owners from taking their SUVs to dealers, it will pick up the vehicles for service. It also will arrange rental cars if parts aren’t available.

Dealers will replace faulty wiper motor covers that allow some electrical terminals to come in contact with each other.

The problem was discovered when a motor overheated at the factory.

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Sedgwick County commissioners are considering asking the state to bar people in the U.S. illegally from a federal nutrition program.

The Wichita Eagle reports that no state has such a restriction on the federal Women, Infants and Children program, which provides nutritional food and supplements, like milk and cheese, to low-income families.

Chairman Richard Ranzau on Wednesday proposed that the county ask the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, which administers WIC money in the state, to restrict program participation to citizens, U.S. nationals and immigrants who are in the country legally.

Two of the other five commissioners supported Ranzau’s plan.

KDHE spokeswoman Sara Belfry says U.S. citizenship isn’t a requirement to be eligible for WIC, and changing eligibility requirements would need state and federal approval.

MANHATTAN, Kan. (AP) — Students at Kansas State are asking the Manhattan City Commission to consider reinstating a rental inspection program.

The Manhattan Mercury reports the commission repealed the city’s previous program, which called for mandatory inspections and fees for landlords. The program was stopped in 2011 after just one year.

Representatives from the Student Governing Association told the commission Tuesday that the issue is a matter of student safety. Student body president Andy Hurtig says some students who rent properties are living in “very deplorable conditions.”

The K-State Student Governing Association unanimously passed a resolution earlier to encourage the commission to look into the issue.

Mayor Karen McCulloh says the commission will take what they said under consideration.

EDGERTON – A Kansas woman and child died in an accident just before 8:30p.m. on Wednesday in Johnson County.

The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 2003 Chevy Impala driven by Towner, Ashley Nicole Towner was southbound on Interstate 35 near Homestead Road in Edgerton, KS

The vehicle went into the median, the driver overcorrected and the vehicle rolled. The driver and passenger were ejected.

Towner and a passenger Ilana Dawn Towner, 6, were pronounced dead at the scene and transported to Frontier Forensics.

They were not wearing seat belts. A booster car seat was in the vehicle but not buckled in, according to the KHP.

SALINA, Kan. (AP) — A 25-year-old man accused of setting three fires at the former Flamingo Motel in Salina has been sentenced to five years and 10 months in prison.

The Salina Journal reports that Dustin J. Gordon was sentenced Wednesday. He had pleaded no contest to two counts of aggravated arson and one count of arson.

Prosecutors say the fires were set in October and July 2014.

Gordon was also ordered to pay $20,000 in restitution to Janie Frick, who was living in rooms at the motel when the fires were set. He was also ordered to pay $86,500 in restitution to LaVelle Frick, who co-owned the building with her late husband.

HUTCHINSON, Kan. (AP) — The Hutchinson City Council has delayed a decision on whether to ban electronic cigarettes in some areas of the city.

The council heard from opponents and supporters of the proposal Tuesday before deciding to take more time to consider the issues.

Supporters want the city to treat e-cigarettes like traditional cigarettes under the Kansas Indoor Clean Air Act, which prohibits smoking in most indoor public places.

The Hutchinson News reports supporters of the ban argue that no one knows what chemicals are contained in e-cigarette vapor, which could endanger public health.

Supporters said individual businesses should be able to decide if they will allow e-cigarettes. They also argued electronic cigarettes help traditional smokers who are trying to quit and that no one has proven the e-cigarettes are unhealthy.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback thinks native son and President Dwight Eisenhower should have more than a sidewalk plaque to honor him on the Statehouse grounds.

The state unveiled the plaque Wednesday during a ceremony. It is the 11th on a “Walk of Honor” started in 2011. The event was a week before the 125th anniversary of Eisenhower’s birth in 1890.

During his remarks, Brownback proposed putting a statute of Ike outside the Statehouse and pointed toward a slope on the northwest side of the grounds. The governor later told reporters his office has been working sporadically on the project for about two years.

Eisenhower was a five-star Army general and supreme Allied commander in World War II before serving as president from 1953 to 1961. He died in 1969.

Mary Jean Eisenhower, granddaughter of Dwight D. Eisenhower, and her son Merrill Atwater, joined Governor Sam Brownback, General Victor J. Braden, Fort Leavenworth, Denorah Barker, Kansas Historical
Foundation, and Timothy Rives, Eisenhower Presidential Library, in adding President Eisenhower to the Kansas Walk of Honor Wednesday.

Eisenhower’s bronze plaque joins 10 other notable Kansans along the walkways of the Kansas State Capitol.

Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969) born in Denison, Texas, but grew up in Abilene, proudly considered himself a Kansan.

He graduated from West Point in 1915. He graduated first in his class from the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth in 1926. Promoted to brigadier general in 1941, Eisenhower directed the allied invasions of North Africa, Sicily, and Italy from 1942 to 1943 and then as Supreme Allied Commander, he planned and executed the Normandy Invasion, June 6, 1944, which ultimately led to victory in Europe the following May.

He served as U.S. President from 1953 to 1961 during a post-war period of prosperity for the nation. President Eisenhower authorized the Interstate Highway System, People to People International in 1956, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

The walk was established in 2011 and highlights people who contributed on a state and national level and have significant connections to Kansas. The previous honorees are Clyde Cessna, Walter Chrysler, Samuel Crumbine, John Steuart Curry, Charles Curtis, Bob Dole, Amelia Earhart, Jack Kilby, Gordon Parks, and William Allen White.

The Kansas Historical Foundation, a 501(c)(3), is the caretaker of funds for the Kansas Walk of Honor. The public is encouraged to donate to this fund. The cost for each plaque is $2,000 including shipping.

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Wichita State University has announced plans to review changes to a campus chapel after critics took aim at the university for renovating the space to accommodate Muslims.

The Wichita Eagle reports  the university in May renovated the Harvey D. Grace Memorial Chapel and removed the tiny altar and pews after Muslims at the university said they wanted a better place to pray.

The family that made the chapel possible in 1964 specified that the chapel remain open to all creeds.

But dozens of donors, alumni and others learned about the renovation and contacted university administrators.

Wichita State President John Bardo said Tuesday the university will consider changing the chapel again and appointed the school’s student affairs vice president to devise a plan to hear ideas for the chapel’s uses.