By JONATHAN ZWEYGARDT
Hays Post
A desire to continue serving the Hays community and Ellis County is the driving force behind Barb Wasinger’s campaign for the 111th Kansas House District seat.
Wasinger, R-Hays, has been a member the Care Council, the Parish Council, volunteered for 10 years at Holy Family Elementary, served on the Hays City Commission for two terms and is currently serving her second term on the Ellis County Commission.
“I’ve been active in the community for a long time,” Wasinger said. “I love Ellis County, I love Kansas. It’s not my native home, but it is home, and I have raised four children here. From the start, it’s always been important for me to give back to the community, and the political life is just an extension of that service I started a long time ago.”
Wasinger believes her years working in city and local government can transfer to the state level.
“Being a city commissioner gave me great insight into how a city works, into urban government, and moving to the county (commission) … gave me a better view of rural needs and the importance of what’s going on in our rural communities,” Wasinger said.
Wasinger has served as the rural representative on the Kansas Association of Counties board for the past year.
“The joy of being able to do both has given me a good handle on both areas but also gives me a fresh look at what the state government would need,” Wasinger said.
Transportation
Wasinger said finding a way to stop taking money from the Kansas Department of Transportation and the Kansas Public Employee Retirement System would be two of her priorities if she were elected.
“I want to stop taking money from KDOT and not funding KPERS properly and, while it’s clearly going to take a long time, I’d like to start the process of repaying KPERS and stop the draining of KDOT,” Wasinger said.
She said a recent stop in Hays by the Transportation Vision Task Force laid out issues facing the roads in Kansas, especially in Ellis County.
“You heard testimony after testimony of roads that are too narrow for vehicles that are driving on them now,” Wasinger said.
Wasinger also pointed to the proposed bypass on 230th Avenue northwest of Hays as a project that needs funding to be completed.
“Ellis County needs that bypass. We have a grant from KDOT, but it was tied to the building of the truck stop which stalled, so we can’t even use that grant and can’t even start planning for that bypass around (Highway) 183 without regulation change,” Wasinger said.
She said it’s also key the government funds KDOT to help update the state’s infrastructure because there are places that have not seen needed improvements in decades.
KPERS
Wasinger said she has also talked with several state employees who are concerned about their retirement and if there will be any money left in the KPERS system.
With the current state of the budget in Kansas and the anticipated increases needed for funding public schools, KDOT, the Kansas Department of Corrections and others, Wasinger said she would be in favor of keeping taxes level and then begin looking for places that can become more efficient.
“I know that more oversight has to be done on just about anything,” Wasinger said. “We have to figure out how to make everything more efficient.”
She said one way to improve government efficiency is to approach government with a business background.
“Understanding the realities of what government can’t do that a business can do,” Wasinger said. “I think that if you look at things with a business eye, you can adapt a lot of practices that make sense.”
School funding
When it comes to school funding, Wasinger said the claims she is against funding schools adequately or paying teaches is not true.
“It’s not just money being thrown at kids that make the education system better,” Wasinger said. “A lot of funding has gone to schools, but it’s not necessarily going to students and teachers, teachers’ salaries.”
She said after the recent increase in school funding, the Shawnee Mission School District raised the administrators’ salaries by 13 percent. The Russell school district built a sport complex. She said these are examples of money spent on schools that are not going to benefit test scores and outcomes and teachers’ salaries.
“You can’t keep doing the same thing and expect a different result,” Wasinger said.
She said there is a lack of accountability in school education funding. She said while some schools are spending funds on the students, other districts are not.
“Teachers need the money, and we need to be concentrating on our students,” Wasinger said.
Health care
While there is a renewed call for Medicaid expansion, Wasinger said any expansion has to be delayed until the problems with KanCare are solved. The sate of Kansas manages Medicaid through a privatized system called KanCare.
“One thing I’ve heard door-to-door is how many people have trouble with the system the way it is now, and we have to get that fixed before we start adding people to a broken system,” Wasinger said.
She is also concerned about the possibility that the federal government will begin to roll back the amount of money they are giving the states to fund the expansion.
“Patients need to come first. They need to be able to choose their own doctors. They need to be able to choose their own insurance, and there needs to be a work requirement tied to any kind of expansion,” Wasinger said.