Kelly seeks to keep Kansas on path to economic recovery

By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Laura Kelly favors staying the course on taxes and reinvesting state revenue gains back into state-funded programs and services.

Kelly was in Hays for a campaign stop Thursday.

Since changes have been made on the federal and state levels, Kelly said state leaders need to take time to evaluate revenue results before making changes. State revenues have been coming in higher than projected in recent months.

“I think we are back on the path to recovery,” she said. “As you well know, our state was in a world of hurt. We did put ourselves on the road to recovery. We do need to evaluate that in the middle of next year and see where we are.”

Kelly said she would like to see reinvestment into many of the state agencies that have been cut in recent years.

This includes school funding. The state is still facing a lawsuit brought by several state school districts over school finance. Although the Kansas Supreme Court has ruled the most recent school funding formula is equitable, it is requiring additional funds be added to the formula to account for inflation.

Kelly said there should be enough extra money in the state coffers due to last session’s tax increase to meet the demands of the Supreme Court.

“It think cutting taxes at this point or implementing the Kobach plan would have Kansas go into a tail spin,” she said. “We know that the Brownback tax experiment did not work, and what Kobach is proposing is to return to that experiment and then go further.”

Some of that refocusing of funds Kelly hopes would go to higher education. This would include money for career and technical education. New programs allow students to earn trade certificates or earn up to a full year’s worth of college credit while still in high school. These programs save students tuition and allow them to enter the workforce sooner.

“We have been harsh on our university systems during the last eight years,” she said. “We have restored some of that funding, but I think we are still about $80 million short. As revenues allow, we need to start restoring that funding.”

Education is the biggest economic driver in the state, Kelly said.

“We have seen the impact of underfunding our schools from early childhood through our university system in the fact that our Kansas economy has lagged behind our surrounding states over the past five to six years,” she said. “But also we are seeing a great out-migration. We are losing people from the state of Kansas to a much greater degree than any of the surrounding states. That’s got to stop.”

Kelly has created a Rural Prosperity Plan that addresses a variety of issues that affect smaller Kansas communities.

“We know over the last eight years, rural Kansas has probably been hurt the worst by the Brownback experiment. We have got to do something to help them revitalize and thrive,” Kelly said.

“What we are proposing in this plan, perhaps most importantly, is we plan to create an Office of Rural Prosperity within the administration. We will filter all policy, all budget issues through that office so people can take a look at it through the lens of rural and agricultural Kansas.”

Included in that plan is a housing program that was instituted in Pittsburg. Two abandon buildings in downtown Pittsburg were renovated to house Pittsburg State University students. The store fronts were remodeled into high-tech cooperative work environments. Students can ride a shuttle to the college. Students in turn are patrons of downtown businesses, which drives the local economy.

In addition, Kelly wants to focus on improving infrastructure, which would include Broadband access to all areas of the state.

She would also expand Medicaid and reform KanCare, putting it back under the control of a non-profit entity.

“We have had an opportunity to expand Medicaid for the last six years, and instead we have sent close to $3 billion now to Washington, D.C., of Kansas taxpayer dollars, which have been distributed across the country for other states to take care of their people and build their economies,” she said. “We need to bring those dollars back to Kansas and provide health-care access to 150,000 people, which would help our workforce. Healthy people are much better workers. It would expand our economy, but it would also create jobs.”

Two years ago, Louisiana expanded Medicaid. In the first year, the state saved $317 million and created 19,000 new jobs, Kelly said.

Republican candidate Kris Kobach has taken an anti-immigration stance in his run for governor.

Kelly said she and Kobach have very different approaches to immigration. She said she thinks immigration is a federal issue and would push the U.S. Congressional delegation to work across the aisle to finally develop comprehensive immigration reform. Kansas industry continues to rely on legal immigrant labor to get their products to market, and Kelly said that needs to be factored into reform.

“I think Kris Kobach’s stance on immigration shows us how out of touch he is with Kansas and the needs of Kansas, particularly agriculture and manufacturing,” she said.

Kelly has had some recent high-profile Republican endorsements, including former Gov. Bill Graves and former U.S. Sen. Nancy Kassebaum.

Kobach struck back, saying Kassebaum was a “has-been” who had “left the party.”

Kelly responded, “I think that the people who have come out to endorse me care about our state as much as I do and recognize I am the right person at this time to lead our state down the path to recovery. They recognize that I not only have the experience and the knowledge, but I have also built the relationships between parties to be able to get things done. …

“We are in a critical situation in the state of Kansas, and we have every possibility of crashing. I have the relationships already. I am good at bringing people together regardless of party or points of view and working toward a common solution that will work for Kansas.”