March 10, 2017
Education: Gannon Case Supreme Court Decision
On Thursday, March 2, 2017, the Kansas Supreme Court gave its ruling on the Gannon VI Case. In its decision, the Court held that the Classroom Learning Assuring Student Success Act (CLASS) enacted in 2015 by the Legislature, does not meet the structured requirements in being constitutionally adequate. For K-12 education finance, the CLASS Act currently will expire on June 30th, 2017, and the Court prefaced that the Legislature must enact a new school financing system by that date.
The Court held that the State must demonstrate that such a financing system is “reasonably calculated to address the constitutional violations” of the adequacy requirement while also satisfying the equity requirement, which were addressed in a special session in 2016. Referring to Article 6, the Court stated that the Constitution of the State of Kansas stipulates the Legislature to “make suitable provision for finance of the educational interests of the state.” This requirement contains both adequacy and equity components that must be satisfied for a constitutional school finance formula.
In Gannon v. State (Gannon I), the Kansas Supreme Court determined that the adequacy component is satisfied “when the public education financing system provided by the Legislature for grades K-12 is reasonably calculated to have all Kansas public education students meet or exceed the Rose standards, which are seven capacities of learning.
Special Joint Wildfire Committee
A Special Joint Committee of the House of Representatives and Senate was convened on Thursday, March 7th, 2017. The meeting, which heard testimony from members of the Kansas Livestock Association, Kansas Department of Agriculture, and Kansas Emergency Management Administration, served as a valuable briefing for Committee members on the current state of counties affected by the wildfires currently plaguing the state. Kansas counties suffering considerable damage from fires are Ford, Rooks, Clark, Ness, Ellsworth, Lincoln, Russell, and Comanche.
It was also learned that roughly 646,950 acres had been burned thus far by the fires for a total cost of $1.2 million. If you want more information on this issue, you can call the Kansas Livestock Association at (785) 273-5715 or visit their website at KLA.org. The Department of Agriculture also has a link, agricutlture.ks.gov/wildfire.
House of Representatives in Action: Bills Pass the House
The House of Representatives passed five important bills dealing with various issues in the state during the week prior to last week’s recess. The first bill being House Bill 2158 which passed on Tuesday, February 22, 2017, revises the deadlines for the acceptance of advance voting ballots.
House Bill 2153 ensures that moneys received under statutory provisions for specific purposes are kept as separate funds from other governmental purposes and creates a notification system for moneys received by state fee funded agencies. Second was House Bill 2140, which authorizes the governor to enter the Great Plains Interstate Fire Compact which increases the state government’s capacity to respond to fires in the state. The fourth bill, House Bill 2076, was passed on Thursday, February 23, 2017. The bill creates the Seat Belt Safety Fund to educate children on the benefits of seat belts and increases the fine for adult seat belt violations from $10 to $30.
The last bill passed on Thursday, was House Bill 2148. The bill enables the creation of distinctive autism awareness and 4-H foundation license plates for vehicles. These bills passed out of the House and we will now see how they proceed through the legislative process in the Senate.
Contact Information
As always, if you have any concerns, feel free to contact me (785) 296-7672, visit www.troywaymaster.com or email me at [email protected]. Also, if you happen to visit the statehouse, please let my office know.
It is a distinct honor to serve as your representative for the 109th Kansas House District and the state of Kansas. Please do not hesitate to contact me with your thoughts, concerns, and questions. I always appreciate hearing from the residents of the 109th House District and others from the state of Kansas, as well.
Troy L. Waymaster, (R-Bunker Hill) is the 109th Dist. State Representative and chairman of the House Appropriations Committee.