By midweek, we’ll know just what Gov. Sam Brownback intends to do in the way of a budget to get Kansas through this fiscal year and at least make it appear on paper that the Legislature has appropriated enough money for the state to do its business next year.

Some legislators are fearful that the governor will line-item veto the most politically important provision in the budget bill that he has until mid-week to sign.

It’s a provision that says simply that the governor can’t reduce the amount of general state aid to school districts this fiscal year or next. Those reductions in appropriated funds—they call them “allotments” in the Statehouse—would make it relatively simple to give most state agencies a financial haircut and wind up this and next fiscal year with a balance in the budget, the constitutional bright yellow line in a legal budget.

Now, that provision in the budget bill is probably the best part of it for the lawmakers who passed the bill to the governor on a vote of 63-59 in the House and, after about an hour’s discreet lobbying, the Senate 22-18.

That provision that prevents the governor from dipping into K-12 funds is the one part of the bill that makes cuts to agency budgets that allows legislators seeking re-election to maintain that they protected the basic state appropriation to the state’s 278 public school districts.

That protection of school funds — if the governor allows it to become law by not line-item vetoing it — makes schools about the only state business that isn’t trimmed and clipped by the budget. On the campaign trail, for the vast majority of lawmakers this session, that “prevent the governor from cutting K-12 money” proviso will be the equivalent of telling constituents that they pulled a child out of the burning barn.

Now, the reason for the funds shortage isn’t hard to remember, those 2012 income tax cuts that slashed revenues to the state’s coffers and required last year’s record tax increase measure, the one that raised the sales tax, slashed income tax deductions (like home mortgage interest and property taxes) and even sent smokers out onto the porch with cigarettes that cost 2.5 cents more per smoke due to a 50-cent a pack tax hike.

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Oh, and while some lawmakers believe that schools should share funds cuts like every other state adventure, the Kansas Supreme Court warned lawmakers in general — though we suspect it was aimed at Brownback — that while lawmakers attempted to make two aspects of school finance dealing with Local Option Budgets and capital outlay funds equitable, the other two branches of government shouldn’t cut into that base state aid that the proviso deals with.

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So, it’s this week that legislators are awaiting action on that final budget bill, and what if anything the governor intends to do with it, and just what, if the governor leaves that proviso in place, he intends to cut in virtually other state agency to protect that school aid.

And, recall, the Supreme Court hasn’t determined just how much money the state ought to spend to provide an adequate education for all schoolchildren in Kansas. That amount — “adequacy” is a different topic than “equity” — is also based on 20-year-old study that defined what a private consulting company believed then was necessary to adequately and equitably finance public education.

See why there is some tension in the halls of the Statehouse? And, are you wondering whether the Legislature will allow the governor to veto the proviso, or wonder just what else gets cut if there is a veto and lawmakers override it?

That’s what this week is all about, and whatever happens probably will tell us whether lawmakers adjourn the 2016 session in an hour or two on June 1, or whether they hang around for another week…or so…

Syndicated by Hawver News Co. of Topeka, Martin Hawver is publisher of Hawver’s Capitol Report. To learn more about this nonpartisan statewide political news service, visit www.hawvernews.com.

The word of the day seemed to be “pull,” and each time it was uttered, gunfire echoed through the trees, welcoming us all to the McPherson Valley Uplands First Annual Sporting Clay Shoot at the McPherson Valley Uplands Outdoor Life Center 5 miles west of McPherson.

The facility sits on 50 acres leased from the NCRA Refinery and is operated by the Pheasants Forever McPherson Area Chapter #510 to provide outdoor activities and education to all area residents, especially kids.

Sporting clay shooting began as a European sport and was introduced here in the U.S. in the early 1980s. Unlike trap and skeet shooting, sporting clays are shot on a course where shooters move from station to station, shooting clay pigeons thrown from automatic throwers set up to emulate real world shooting conditions encountered on an actual hunt.

The course was designed, set-up and maintained by renowned sporting clay course designer Dennis Linden from McPherson. Linden owns a local electrical business and as a competitive sporting clay shooter years ago, had his own practice course. Although he no longer competes, he designs and builds sporting clay courses all across the country, most permanent, but some only temporary like the course today.

Today’s course consisted of ten stations scattered through the woods and around the pond at the Outdoor Life Center, each with two throwers. Groups of four or five shooters moved through the stations, shooting ten clays from each. The throwers were remotely controlled by one group member while the rest of the group shot. Clays were thrown at different heights and from different angles; one came clear from the other side of the pond and a couple even skimmed just inches above the ground simulating a running rabbit. At three stations both targets were even thrown simultaneously.

Kansas State Senator Rick Wilborn from McPherson shot in the first group. Wilborn is an enthusiastic outdoorsman, and when asked why he was shooting today he told me “I’ve been an avid sporting clays shooter since the sport came to the U.S. and I wanted to come out and shoot today to support what the Uplands Center is doing here, especially for our youth.”

I also found the team consisting of JC Saunders, his wife Susan, their eleven year old daughter Samantha, thirteen year old daughter Jessica and their friend, fourteen year old Logan Oborny, all from Lehigh, Kansas. JC taught Susan to shoot before they were married, and today they are the instructors for the shotgun portion of the Marion County 4H shooting sports program. The family shoots together at least a couple times a month, sometimes competitively, and the whole family hunts deer, turkeys, pheasants and quail. When I asked the kids why they would rather be here today than home doing something else, they all replied in unison “Because we get to be outdoors and shoot guns!”

The fees from today’s sporting clay shoot all go to support a program there at the Uplands Family Life Center known as “third Thursday,” where kids of all ages and their parents are invited out the third Thursday evening of the month, May – August, from 6-8 PM to a FREE supervised shooting event, where each kid is coached in shooting BB and pellet guns, .22 rifles, shotguns, bows and even slingshots, and the hotdogs and chips are also FREE.

This is how God’s Creation and HIS outdoors are meant to be enjoyed, so check out the website at www.mcphersonvalleyuplands.org and visit the Uplands Family Life Center as you continue to Explore Kansas Outdoors.

Steve Gilliland, Inman, can be contacted by email at [email protected].