Hello from Topeka! Welcome to the 2018 Session.  The first week was filled with the usual committee reorganization and hearing from the Governor on the State of the State. Once again, this year I am pleased to be serving as vice-chairman of Water & Environment committee and a member on the Taxation, Transportation committees.    

Since the end last session, and the ruling by the Kansas Supreme Court, we knew the biggest issue we will face is school finance.  Some see a simple remedy, adding an additional $600 million to K-12, but will that solve the challenge we face?

At the heart of the conflict before us is our charge to provide the resources necessary for a suitable education that meets the Court’s vague definition of these measures. Our constituents have entrusted us with the job of balancing the State budget and investing their tax dollars prudently and judiciously. Mental health, early childhood, foster care and infrastructure needs are among the many areas we must invest in for the quality of life of our citizens. The rubber has hit the road. With all of these competing priorities, how can we find peace and instill stability?

Decisions on budgeting require scrutinizing and prioritizing.  Stability is based in decisions that consider the needs of today and the expectations and demands of tomorrow. For many years now, the process has instead revolved around mandates asking us to prioritize one state function over all others.

It is important to all of us that have been elected as a member of the Kansas Legislature that we need to keep the big picture in mind and not one issue over all others.

School funding dominates our state budget. It is shortsighted to suggest that these other terribly important areas do not also lend to the needs of our communities and their public schools.

As I said earlier, Governor Brownback presented the annual State of the State Address to the on the second day of the session.  He reported that the state of our state is “indeed strong and very promising,” as also unveiled his plan to inject $600 million into K-12 education over five years, however, he did not provide any method to fund such an increase.  He also noted the need to hire additional teachers and increase their salaries.

The State General Fund (SGF) profile of the Governor’s Budget shows a $300.7 million deficit for FY ’20, even with assuming that the Highway Fund sweep and transfer from the CIF continue.

The Governor’s Education proposal is financed partially by a $13.9 million transfer from the Children’s Initiative Fund (CIF).  Of the $200.8 million added for FY ’19, $87.8 million SGF was included in 2017 SB 19.  The Governor adds an additional $100 million SGF for following four Fiscal Years.

The Governor’s Budget Report does not fully fund KPERS for FY ’19.  The $194 million payment that was delayed will not be made, it  does not restore the four percent cuts made to Higher Education along with not funding  enhancement requests requested by the Judicial Branch.

The Governor’s Budget Report does contain $190.7 million of enhancement requests, which includes his new school funding proposal.  This amount does not include K-12 and Health and Human Services Caseloads and KPERS School contributions.

While I appreciate the effort to put forth a budget proposal, this one has landed with a big thud.  I hope to learn more in tax committee this week.

If you come to Topeka during the session, my office is in Room: 352-S. My phone number is 785-296- 7463 and email is: [email protected] and my cell number is 785-302-8416.   

It is my honor to be your representative.

House District 110 covers: 

• Norton and Phillips Counties
• Ellis County: Cities: Catharine, Ellis and Schoenchen; Townships: Big Creek(part), Buckeye, Catherine, Ellis, Herzog(part), Lookout(part) and Wheatland(part)
• Graham County: City: Hill City; Townships: Hill City(part) and Nicodemus(part)
• Rooks County: Cities: Damar, Palco, Plainville, Stockton, Woodston and Zurich; Townships:1, 2, 3, 4, 5(part), 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12

Ken Rahjes (R-Agra) is the Dist. 110 state representative. 

The governor’s budget? Even the simple descriptions of it are political. Many Republicans are still fuming that the governor proposes to spend too much money, meaning tax increases are ahead, if not this session just before a new governor is elected, then the session after. Democrats are at least positive on Gov. Sam Brownback’s five-year, $600 million increase in K-12 funding, but not much else so far.

And Kansas House members who are seeking reelection, and those who want to unseat them, generally are cautious. The total dollar figure for K-12 sounds about right, but over five years? Any chance the Kansas Supreme Court which declared last session’s K-12 plan unconstitutional will go for a five-year fix? Nobody, at least nobody who wears a black robe to work, is saying…

Probably one of the better pieces of news is that the outgoing (either this spring to a federal job, or at his term end) governor is planning to pay—yes, use real money, not a financing gimmick—$18.1 million in the rest of this fiscal year and $30.8 million in the upcoming fiscal year for the state’s share of the Kansas Public Employees Retirement System (KPERS) contributions for teachers. The state’s pension plan, recall, has been mostly refinanced, pushing contributions into the future like you do if you refinance your home.

Another bright spot? Brownback plans to boost the budget for Statehouse operations by $200,000 so that public (and other) interest groups won’t have to pay up to $500 to hold a gathering under the dome to talk to their lawmakers. (Although for a few groups that hold Statehouse rallies, we’re figuring a two-drink minimum would have covered those now-cancelled fee hikes.)

But…the bright spots are relatively sparse. While the House Appropriations and Senate Ways and Means committees parse each line item of the governor’s budget, which projects surpluses (yes, cash in the bank after the bills are paid) of $266 million on June 30 and $150 million the following year, few believe the fiscal year will end with that much cash.

In fact, the only new expenditure in the budget that appears to be virtually assured is a relatively cheap ($8 million this year and next) remake of the state’s programs for the roughly 7,000 children who are the responsibility of the state, who have been removed from their parents’ homes for their safety.

That provision increases investigative staff at the Kansas Department for Children and Families so that we can locate the kids who leave their foster care homes or their adoptive parents, allocates $1.5 million for additional staffers to ensure those children’s welfare, and provides new emergency shelter for those children so they don’t wind up sleeping in offices of child-care contractors.

Anyone against that? No hands held up. And, it is Lt. Gov. who hopes to grow up to be Governor Jeff Colyer who is the owner of that child welfare provision, both as a government executive and a Republican candidate for governor.

What else is assured from Brownback’s $6.923 billion budget for this year and $6.899 billion budget for the upcoming fiscal year? Not much.

So, the Legislature is up and running, in the first few weeks of dissecting the budget, seeing what the state can afford and can’t afford and just how political parties in general and voters in specific will like or dislike the lawmakers as they vote in August and again in November.

We’ll see how this works out…

Syndicated by Hawver News Company LLC of Topeka; Martin Hawver is publisher of Hawver’s Capitol Report—to learn more about this nonpartisan statewide political news service, visit the website at www.hawvernews.com

I believe this may be the case when you look at all the soft drinks, flavored water and sports beverage choices today. They’re everywhere.

You can’t walk into a supermarket or convenience store without bumping into the many drink offering displays.

And flavors. Wow.

Just think of some taste you desire like fudge malted gumball, cheese yogurt yummy or silvery satin strawberry. It’s out there and you can buy it and drink it down.

Without question, the best part of these drinks for me is the packaging.

It’s unbelievable. And the creativity?

It’s almost too much for one to digest.

Anymore, I don’t even care what’s in the container. I just want to hold it in my hand, caress its coolness, admire its latest, unique logo and look good doing so.

While many are content with the multitude of diet sodas, and flavored waters like blackberry blush, my drink of choice is chocolate milk. I really enjoy it. I have since I was a small child.

Today’s explosion of new soft drinks, flavored waters and sports drinks has one major worrisome aspect I cannot help but point out.

Pitchmen, women and yes kids are filling our heads with the idea these flavored drinks can be part of a well-rounded, balanced diet. Their ads and infomercials are as numerous as grains of sand on our beaches – and they’re spending billions.

The most alarming part of this sales pitch is that so much of it is aimed at our youth. In case you haven’t been in today’s schools this drink deluge is very much a part of the contemporary scene.

Soft drinks have no business being considered part of a balanced diet at our schools or anywhere else. These drinks have little, if any, nutritional value.

Look at the ingredients in a soft drink the next time you pick one up. Most people wouldn’t have a clue what these ingredients are, myself included.

To be part of a balanced diet, a food product must have nutritional value. I believe soft drinks have such a negligible amount, they cannot be considered seriously as part of any “balanced” diet.

Unlike water, soft drinks won’t even quench your thirst. They leave you longing for a tall, cool glass of water.

Talk to a nutritionist or physician and what is the ingredient we’re supposed to drink at least eight glasses of?

That’s right. Nature’s own liquid – water.

What about that wonderful white liquid chocked full of calcium we call milk?

Where does it fit in our daily diet?

Milk belongs in almost everyone’s diet. Nutritional research has stressed that men and women between the ages of 11 and 24 need the equivalent of five servings of dairy products daily. This can be milk, yogurt, cheese, ice cream and a whole array of other good-tasting dairy foods.

Juice from oranges, grapefruit, lemons, limes, cranberries, strawberries and other fruits is another item that belongs as part of a balanced diet. Food products from natural primary crops – not always secondary, highly processed food products – are essential to our youngsters’ diets. We owe it to them and their good health.

Other drinks made from tomatoes, carrots, celery and other vegetables are loaded with vitamins, minerals and fiber. Vegetable drinks should be included as part of our daily diets.

But let’s return to soft drinks. You’ve got to admit it’s a brilliant stroke of marketing to link sports and flavored drinks with a well-rounded, nutritionally balanced diet. Infer something often enough and people will begin to believe.

Soft drinks linked with a balanced diet and nutrition is about as palatable to me as the drink manufacturers laughing all the way to the bank.

There is no substitute for healthy, nutritious food in our daily diets. Students and adults should reach for a tall glass of water, juice or milk the next time they’re thirsty. These are truly nutritious products that belong in a daily balanced diet.

The occasional Coke or Dr. Pepper can be a real treat, and everyone should indulge their simple pleasures from time to time.

But the rest of the time, keep it simple – chocolate milk, fruit juices or water will do just fine. You’ll be doing yourself a favor and you’ll be supporting farmers and ranchers who supply these fresh, tasty, nutritious drinks.

Bottoms up.

John Schlageck, a Hoxie native, is a leading commentator on agriculture and rural Kansas.

 In past week, average statewide gas price rose nine cents to $2.37

Those who’ve grown up in urban areas get used to round the clock mechanized sounds. Hearing lawn mowers, leaf blowers, drivers gunning engines, or jets roaring overhead causes no panic. In fact, car alarms, sirens, and even crashes at nearby intersections generate only short-term interest. Move that same population to the country and note how their eyes widen at every noise.

No matter a sound’s origin, imagination multiplies it. A squeak or scritch in the wall is a rodent infestation. Coyotes howling alarms pets and humans alike. You’d think werewolves had invaded. A rabbit shrieking its death cry is enough to send former city dwellers into a catatonic state. Knowing this about my former big city neighbors, I wondered how I’d handle living a mile from our nearest neighbor when we moved from the edge of Ellis to an isolated hilltop in Trego County.

It didn’t take long to find out. We moved in December, and resident wild canines serenaded us to sleep on wintry nights. In short time, I looked forward to these rural lullabies. We also had nesting owls in a tree outside our bedroom. Again, once I recognized the source of those sleep inducing hoots and murmurs, I nodded off quickly. The occasional death cries of expiring cottontails raised my heart rate, but once I identified the source, I knew another hilltop inhabitant had dined well.

What I wasn’t prepared for were unexpected and repetitive tap, tap, tappings of woodpeckers. All those trees lining nearby Big Creek and the cedar siding on our house turned the area into a battle of feathered percussionists. Because we fed black oil sunflower seeds and suet to resident birds, we regularly enjoyed watching the unique flight pattern of sapsuckers, flickers, redheaded, hairy, and downy woodpeckers. They joined a myriad of other species at our feeders. All our guests were delightful, but the hard-headed, sharp-beaked creatures especially charmed us.

That is until they decided to drill for insects in our cedar siding. The first time this happened, it was early morning and our resident game warden was on duty checking hunters. A sharp and continual rapping on the north side of the house awakened me and our young daughters from deep sleep.

After peering out windows, expecting to see someone parked in the drive and pounding unceasingly on the outside wall, I was surprised to find no vehicle in sight. When we couldn’t identify the source of the intense and unending tapping, the girls’ and my imaginations went into over drive. We’d watched one too many scary movies.

For just a while, had someone been recording, the three of us would have qualified for America’s Funniest Home Videos. Pajama clad, we crept about looking for our tormentor and trying to decide whether this situation required a 911 call. Thank God, we identified our intruder before we punched that button.

Upon further inspection, I found a pair of flickers wildly attacking our siding. Intent on a tasty meal, they hammered til my presence drove them from their perch.

Recalling that incident and my response still makes me blush. After years of hearing only nature’s noises, I’m a country convert. A few hours in a metropolis and my brain reels from so much man-made sound.

Native Kansan Karen Madorin is a local writer and retired teacher who loves sharing stories about places, people, critters, plants, food, and history of the High Plains.

Wednesday morning I put out several traps for bobcats. Their fur is best now after January first, and I expected they would be out on the prowl ahead of the cold front that was bringing the cold weather and snow. The first spot was on the edge of a soybean stubble field just a stone’s throw from the city limits at a spot that looked like a bobcat toilet. Yes you read that right; bobcats are merely overgrown house cats at heart and pick sandy spots along field edges that they use like giant liter boxes, making them good places for traps as its assured they will continue to visit there from time to time.

Two traps went there, wired to a couple concrete blocks for an anchor. The next three were all “cubbies,” small enclosures I built from sticks and limbs to mimic where some prey animal might be hiding to escape the wind and snow. One was built against a stubby tree at the corner of an opening in a long thick tree row, one was against a wooden corner fence post where three brushy fence rows converged and the third was along a creek bank in a pile of limbs and field trash. Bait and lure was smeared on the tree inside each cubby, a handful of feathers were tossed inside each and a goose wing or a fuzzy tail excised from a stuffed animal was hung from an overhanging tree limb as an extra attention getter. Unlike coyotes that might be spooked by big gaudy things, bobcats seem to be drawn to flashy objects.

The last trap I set was in a rather interesting location. The creek that drains several ponds at the McPherson Valley Wetlands southeast of Inman has been bone dry now for months, and critters seem to like walking dry creek beds like that. I parked along the road, grabbed a trap and some other provisions, scaled the deep ditch down into the creek bed and began walking to find a suitable spot for a trap. Seventy yards or so from the road two other drainages converge with the creek from the right and left, making sort of a four-way stop where every critter traveling the creek bed from any direction will pass. On the very corner in the bottom of the creek bed was an old muskrat den.

With my trowel, I made the hole big enough to pass for an opening that might be harboring a rabbit or some other tasty bobcat snack, put some lure and a handful of feathers in the back of the hole, set the trap in front and hung an old fluffy stuffed animal tail from a limb on a nearby tree. Looking around me gave me a strange feeling, as less than a year ago, because of the big beaver dam that then stretched for twenty yards just behind me, the water was four feet deep where I now stood, and I trapped a couple big beavers just three feet from where I just set the trap.

The next morning we all awoke to snow and blowing snow, almost like it was actually winter. I garbed –up and headed out into the snowy gale, having to stop along the road a couple times because I could barely see the hood of the pickup. I had a coyote at what I had thought to be the big litter box; one that was evidently out-of-the-loop and didn’t get the memo that it was a “cats only” establishment. There were literally hundreds of fresh coyote tracks in a wide circle around the trapped coyote; either it paraded all around the trap before deciding to investigate, or all its buddies showed up to laugh at its predicament. The rest of the cubbies had snow drifts in their openings and it was still snowing, so I retreated to the house.

The following morning, I again had no catches, but fresh critter tracks, some coyote and some bobcat were everywhere I looked. It took considerable time to scoop the snow out of each little cubby and make sure the traps were not frozen to the ground. As I left each one, I kicked loose dirt around on top of the fresh snow, yet another attention getter that would be seen by passing critters.

As of this writing, I’ve not yet caught any bobcats, but they travel a long ways so now it’s a waiting game. In the meantime, God continues to “wow” me each morning with something. Yesterday it was deer, as more than fifteen white tails “waved” goodbye all across the field as a herd we snuck up on pranced for cover. Later it was a hawk that screamed at me from a tree just above as I sat wedged under a big cedar tree calling coyotes. I feel that if I don’t see something amazing each morning, then I’m just not looking. Although there are currently no roses to stop and smell, slow down and let God amaze you as you continue to Explore Kansas Outdoors!

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

Trump has railed against existing legal protections, most recently following the publication of journalist Michael Wolff’s searing book “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House.” On Wednesday, Trump said he will take a “strong look” at the country’s libel laws because they are a “sham and a disgrace and do not represent American values and American fairness.”

Just hours earlier, Trump’s personal attorney Michael Cohen sued BuzzFeed Inc. and consulting firm Fusion GPS for defamation, claiming they had made unproven or erroneous allegations about him in a controversial “Russia dossier” compiled by Fusion and later published by BuzzFeed.

The laws that Trump wants to tinker with are rooted in a 1964 U.S. Supreme Court decision, New York Times v. Sullivan, which protects critics of public officials, even if their offending speech contains error — as did the newspaper advertisement at the heart of that legal dispute.

Most certainly that decision and others that followed it are not license to fabricate and defame without concern. The Times v. Sullivan decision stakes out conditions in which defamatory material is not protected: Material disseminated with “malicious intent” — that is, with the knowledge it is false — or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not.

But absent those circumstances, the Court said, the need for a democracy to have an “uninhibited, robust and wide open” discussion on matters of public interest requires that we accept that those discussions likely will contain “vehement, caustic and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials.”

“I consider [the book] a work of fiction,” Trump told reporters on Jan. 6, at a meeting at Camp David, Md. “The libel laws are very weak in this country. If they were strong, it would be very helpful. You wouldn’t have things like that happen where you can say whatever comes to your head.”

Actually, the very point of the First Amendment’s protection for free speech and a free press is that we get to say “whatever” comes into our heads, with very few restraints, without fear of being prevented or punished by the government. The Sullivan standard accepts inadvertent error in the effort to inform citizens on matters of public interest.

In response to Cohen’s lawsuit, a spokesman for BuzzFeed said that “The dossier is, and continues to be, the subject of active investigations by Congress and intelligence agencies. It was presented to two successive presidents, and has been described in detail by news outlets around the world. Its interest to the public is obvious.” The spokesman added, “This is not the first time Trump’s personal lawyer has attacked the free press, and we look forward to defending our First Amendment rights in court.”

Cohen relies, ironically, on the very standard in Sullivan that Trump would alter or remove: That the material in the dossier was published with knowledge that it was false.

As has been noted by many experts following Trump’s multiple threats to change libel law, it isn’t possible to make changes with the stroke of a presidential pen, or even an act of Congress. Libel laws are state laws, so changes would have to take place in 51 sets of statutes (including Washington, D.C.), through a Supreme Court decision, or through constitutional changes. Neither is likely.

The best tactic in defending Trump against the criticism in Wolff’s book or the allegations in the Fusion dossier may well be to use the power already in the hands of Trump and his cohorts: The power public officials have to respond effectively to negative and damaging comments (which is so much more than that of non-celebrities that in Times v. Sullivan public officials — and later all public figures — were granted less protection against such comments).

Clearly, Trump and his legal representatives have plenty of means to counter virtually any allegation, including Tweet storms, via sympathetic news outlets, and from the daily platform of the White House briefing room.

In other words, Trump can use the “Bully Pulpit” that is the White House — and, if you will, the “Bully Tweets” that he relies on so much. He shouldn’t try to silence the news media for reporting what the public needs to know, but instead encourage journalists to report the claims on all sides, including his own.

Trump needs to join in the “uninhibited, robust and wide open” discussion that is democracy’s lifeblood, rather than trying to silence others in this ongoing national conversation.

Gene Policinski is president and chief operating officer of the Newseum Institute. He can be reached at [email protected], or follow him on Twitter at @genefac.

By RON WILSON
Huck Boyd National Institute for Rural Development

Let’s go to New York City to a high-end restaurant and order a Braveheart steak. The steak is delicious. These steaks are available in high quality restaurants across the country – but there is only one place in the nation where a person can get one of these steaks to cook at home. That place is not Manhattan, New York, but Manhattan, Kansas.

Jake Worcester and his partners are the owners of Manhattan Meat Market in Manhattan, Kansas. Jake and his friends wanted high quality, locally-sourced meat so they started this meat market of their own.

Jake grew up on a farm in northwest Kansas where his family consumed meat they raised themselves. (That takes the “know your farmer, know your food” concept to a whole new level!) Jake was active in 4-H and FFA, went to K-State where he was elected student body president, served as Kansas assistant secretary of agriculture, and now is president and CEO of the Kansas 4-H Foundation.

“We noticed a resurgence of interest in specialty meats and local meat products,” Jake said. In recent years, he talked about this with friends and former co-workers at the Kansas Department of Agriculture and elsewhere. In order to respond to this consumer demand, Jake and these friends opened Manhattan Meat Market in June 2017.

“Our goal is to provide great local products with great customer service to the Manhattan community,” Jake said. “In a larger sense, we also want to tell the story of Kansas farmers and ranchers who have such a great product.”

“Our first decision was that we wanted to distribute Braveheart beef,” Jake said. These steaks are produced by the Beef Marketing Group in Kansas and typically go to high-end restaurants including Harry’s in Manhattan and many on the east coast. Manhattan Meat Market is the first in the country where a consumer can buy those steaks and cook them on his or her own grill.

“Our second decision was that we wanted to feature local producers – and we mean local,” Jake said. For example, Manhattan Meat Market offers many products grown in rural Riley, Pottawatomie, and surrounding counties. These include lamb from Glenn Brunkow near Westmoreland, meat goats from Brenda Jordan at Riley, bison from Rick Eyestone near Junction City, and pork from Josh Wendland near Barnes, population 159 people. Now, that’s rural.

These products are supplemented with other products as needed, such as additional pork from Nebraska and seafood from the coasts. The meat is brought in to Manhattan Meat Market as primal or sub-primal cuts. There is no slaughtering done at Manhattan Meat Market. The store offers pre-packaged products or the staff can custom-cut an order.

“Because we don’t have mass volume, we’re able to get to know and serve our customers,” Jake said. The store also offers related products such as rubs and sauces and local favorites such as Alma Cheese and Holy Goat Creamery cheese, plus much more. Occasionally, items such as striped bass and steelhead salmon are available.

One partner, Chad Bontrager, helps source products through his ownership of locker plants in Frankfort and Meriden, plus Yoder Meats. “We’ve got the right kind of team to serve the customer,” Jake said.

“If there’s a place in Kansas to buy great meat, Manhattan ought to be the place,” Jake said. “We’re situated in the Flint Hills next to the nation’s leading land-grant university and one of the country’s finest meat science departments.”

Food safety and quality are top priorities. “We want to help educate people that the U.S. food system is the safest in the world,” Jake said. The focus is also on superior quality and service. “We believe there is a market for high-end, locally-sourced, premium product.”

For more information, go to www.mhkmeats.com.

It’s time to leave New York City where we found a steak that can only be purchased for home use in Manhattan, Kansas. We salute Jake Worcester and all those involved for making a difference with entrepreneurship in the protein business. Manhattan Meat Market is a place where high quality and customer service can meet.

Kansans deserve better.

In response to the Supreme Court’s decision in Gannon V, legislative leaders in both public and private meetings have been warning Kansans that complying with the decision would force other areas of the Kansas budget to suffer. This rhetoric is being spread in an attempt to scare Kansans, and to force support for an ill-advised attempt to alter the education article in the Kansas Constitution. This strategy is not new; legislative leaders have used this strategy before to try to avoid their constitutional duty. Kansans did not fall for it in 1993, 1995, 1997, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2013, and 2016. Kansans should not fall for it in 2018 either.

The legislature is charged with funding the government. All of it. But funding state government is not a zero-sum game. It is not “either fund this service or fund that service.” The legislative duty is to fund ALL necessary state services adequately. This includes hospitals, social services, highways, the courts, the corrections system, higher education, health and environment and … of course, public schools.

Attempting to pit these groups against each other in a scramble for the dollar is disingenuous.

Amending the constitution to hurt public schools goes against values that Kansans have held dear for 160 years. Bending these values to meet current ideology is simply inappropriate… as it has been for the past 25 years. Declaring that no taxes shall be considered is an abdication of the legislature’s constitutional responsibility. Painting a picture that three prisons must close if we are to fund the schools is outrageous fear-mongering. Kansans demand better. ALL services, including public schools, need adequate funding.

Schools for Fair Funding is an association of 40 school districts that educate approximately 30% of all Kansas school children. No SFFF official is advocating for a reduction in state services designed to meet the needs of Kansas families, and no member of this group desires any state service to suffer. SFFF desires a strong safety net of services for Kansas families. When Kansas children wake up hungry, experience medical issues, or come from a foster care system that is broken, school officials see the harm caused first-hand. Students have to be ready to learn in order to achieve success. The Gannon case is about giving all children the opportunity to receive an education that meets constitutional standards, a task that would be even more difficult without a sound safety net of services for Kansas families.

Many legislators express an interest in ending the cycle of litigation, and yet they fail to acknowledge the Legislature’s historic role in the cycle. But for legislative foot dragging and intentional non-compliance, there would be no cycle. The Gannon case was filed in 2010, following the 2008-09 dramatic cuts to K- 12 education. The initial cuts included reneging on the third year of the school finance plan that settled the Montoy case in 2006. Since Gannon was filed, the state has lost at the trial court level twice, and at the Supreme Court five times. The only time in the past eight years the state has been successful in the Gannon case was in June of 2016, when the Legislature worked directly with the plaintiffs to fix the equity issues, and the Supreme Court agreed that the changes made complied with constitutional equity requirements. Sadly, in the very next legislative session, the Legislature then adopted new legislation that destroyed the equity of the previous system and introduced new inequitable provisions.

This, of course, resulted in another defeat before the Supreme Court, in Gannon V. None of this was a surprise to informed observers. It was all very predictable.

Moving forward, the best way for the Legislature to end the cycle of litigation is to quit passing unconstitutional legislation and to focus on funding our schools in compliance with Gannon V.
Stop trying to “game” the court. It has not worked thus far and won’t work now. No one is more tired of litigation than school officials.

Currently, over 25% of Kansas school children are under-performing on state assessments. The state of Kansas has produced studies that prove the current levels of funding will not provide all children with a constitutional level of education. Again, these are the state’s own studies, not something concocted by plaintiffs or the schools. The Kansas Supreme Court has been extremely patient, but we believe the Gannon V court is telling the Legislature and Governor that this is their last chance to “get it right.”

We stand ready to work with public policy leaders and advocates to make the transition to compliance as smoothly as possible. Kansans should expect nothing less.

Justin Henry, Superintendent USD No. 265 President, Schools For Fair Funding

Alan L. Rupe
John S. Robb, Counsel for Schools For Fair Funding [email protected]

Let’s hope and pray America’s justice system can recover from a black eye. Better still, make that a “black hole.”

Not even a genius director or writer in Hollywood could make this stuff up.

I am not a conspiracy theorist so let’s make that clear to begin with. There’s indisputable, incontrovertible evidence forthcoming about massive corruption in our government for decades. It will take time to right the ship but the process, we hope, is underway.

If readers turn into news (other than liberal media) it’s clear that the corruption in our justice agencies and beyond is enormous. In fact, the enormity of the corruption is unprecedented in American history.

Ninety percent of our media is not reporting what has taken place within many of our government agencies, especially our FBI. Department of Justice, and State Department, since Obama became president in 2009. Maybe it even goes as far back as Bill Clinton’s presidency.

Does “drain the swamp” ring a bell? Trump, like no other presidential candidate before him, campaigned on draining the swamp. Democrat and some Republican establishment politicians were fit to be tied. God willing (it may take a higher power), there may be forces at work in this president’s government to put an end to massive corruption of the past.

Deep, very deep, into most all government agencies are Obama holdovers determined to protect an Obama legacy and destroy Trump, the new guy on the block with a different kind of background unheard of in American political history. The Obama holdovers are known as the “deep state” out to get Trump when it was Hillary they wanted as our president.

The presidential campaign donations by government personnel to Hillary versus Trump is shocking! Hillary got over 90%, Trump peanuts. That in itself looks to me like a big red flag.

Instead of the deep state taking out Trump over his collusion with Russia to win the presidency, the tables have turned! No evidence has been found of Trump collusion, but mountains of evidence of collusion with Russia by Hillary and Democrats. Not only was there collusion by many Democrats, come to find out, truck loads of other corruption to put Hillary back in the White House.

Much of the corruption finally hitting the press with one bombshell after another has actually been there for years and I have known about it. Democrat Deep State, with the help of leftist media, has kept we the people from the truth and some very important facts. Americans deserve to know the truth.

I repeat. If you get your news from liberal media (CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, the Times, Post, etc.) you are missing the greatest scandals to ever come down the pike in American history. You’ve got to go to conservative news to become informed. Liberal media completely ignores the bombshells.

A good question at this point is “how did we as a country let this happen?” Two things, as I see it. Number one, all the people involved in the corruption are like minded, therefore, nobody was questioned and all were in position to protect each other from any kind of scrutiny. Secondly, our liberal, in the tank media with Democrats, just flat out ignored what was going on. A free press, which we do not have, held nobody accountable.

Another question, and by far the most important one is “what’s at stake?” It’s as if we have become a police state where government, not the people, controls all. Where is the rule of law? What about equality of law? You can bet, if Trump broke all the laws Hillary did, our president would not be in the White House. The jailhouse instead.

To straighten out the corruption of the past and make people pay for their crimes may be “the” most important thing ever for this country if there is truly equal justice for all and the rule of law.

Here are just a few of the many bombshells forthcoming. Hillary broke some dozen laws with a private email server, compromised our national security, yet exonerated by the FBI’s Director James Comey. All kinds of shady stuff took place at the time. She was exonerated before an investigation even took place and the whole FBI investigation was a sham. Fast forward a year or so and we find that Comey leaked classified memos in order to get a Special Council run by Mueller for the purpose of destroying Trump. Those are crimes.

When Hillary was Secretary of State, she was right up front in selling U.S. uranium to our enemy Russia. Uranium is the key ingredient for developing nuclear weapons. Following the sale, the Clinton Foundation received $145 million dollars from Russia. During this time the FBI Director Robert Mueller totally ignored the bribes and money laundering taking place by Russians in the U.S. to complete the sale.

There was massive corruption by the FBI in trying to destroy Trump before the election, and even now. A fake dossier that Dems and maybe the FBI paid for to destroy Trump was used to get a FISA warrant by the Obama government to spy on Trump and associates. FBI personnel directly under Comey have been caught red handed saying something drastic needs to be done to keep Trump from becoming president.

Obviously, and this is critical to know as voters. Our intelligence and justice agencies have become completely politicized when there is nothing more important to this country for all agencies to be non-partisan. Using a double standard based on “who you are and not what you do” is going down the road of being a police state.

It appears to be a case of government agencies becoming “politicized” like never before. Politics first, justice a distant second, if even that.

Keep these major players high up in the chain in mind for their corruption. Robert Mueller, James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Rod Rosenstein, Andrew Weissman, Peter Strzok, Bruce Ohr, Susan Rice, Loretta Lynch, Eric Holder, Huma Abedin, Cheryl Mills, Debbie Wasserman Schultz. Yes, Hillary, of course, “and” Barack Obama.

A sixty four thousand dollar question? Is the corruption so very big with such big players as the Clintons and the others – is it even possible for we the people to have justice served? If not, we can kiss being a democratic republic goodbye. A good case, obviously, can be made that we haven’t been democratic.

And, did Obama succeed in stacking our courts with hundreds of liberal judges that fair and just trials aren’t going to happen?

Les Knoll lives in Victoria and Gilbert, Ariz.

The State of the State address is finished and the governor has left Republican legislators near tears and Democratic legislators scratching their heads. The leaders have appeared in front of the journalists to declare that big problems remain over school finance again, Medicaid expansion again, KPERS solvency again and refilling depleted transportation infrastructure accounts again.

Pundits assert that 2018 will be a very significant year as Kansans will pick a new governor, test the Republican hold on two out of four congressional seats and elect a new state House of Representatives. There will be declarations that policy solutions will go begging because of competitive clashes between candidates, incumbents and interests. And whatever happens everyone must disavow further tax increases.

As this news is spilling out, facts will be glossed over or unmentioned because they don’t have the sizzle and sound-bite qualities that get peoples’ attention. The most important of these difficult facts involve the multi-year chasm that has been created by reduced revenue and resulting failures to provide previously enacted services to Kansans.

In December the Kansas Legislative Research Department issued “Kansas Tax Facts: 2017 Supplement to the Eighth Edition.” (www.kslegislature.org/klrd) In this official, non-partisan and unembellished document you can discover that over the last 12 years state tax revenues have increased at a rate of 1.4% per year. In the same time period the annual change in the Consumer Price Index was about 2%. In other words, even at these very low rates of increase, Kansas’s revenue receipts for state government ran about 30% behind the year-to-year increase in the cost of goods and services.

Inflation aside, there are additional factors. Consider the slow increase in public school students, and the much more dramatic increase in numbers of elderly — both of which drive big chunks of the state’s general fund budget. Since the 2006-07 school year the state Department of Education K-12 headcount has grown from 496,000 to approximately 519,000 or 23,000 school children. It’s a modest 4.5% increase but even at our judicially disapproved level of insufficient school funding, that increase represents nearly $90 million more annual cost than existed 12 years ago.

The governor’s Budget Division tracks the state’s changing demographics and includes that data in the governor’s annual budget message to the legislature – again an easily accessible internet resource. What that data shows is much more dramatic growth in the age 65+ population than in the school population. In 2006 there were 140,000 fewer elderly than K-12 children in the state. Today, there are roughly 450,000 Kansans age 65 and older, just 69,000 fewer that the public school population.

Demographers predict persons 65 and over will exceed the number of juveniles here in Kansas by mid-century. The change in these past 12 years suggests those estimates are conservative. Over 90% of these elderly receive Social Security benefits and according to 2014 data, 29% of them live at or below two times the federal poverty level or lower. These Kansans will need Medicaid subsidized nursing care in large numbers. Even many currently above this arbitrary level are likely to need such assistance in their final years, if national trends hold.

These are realities that must be dealt with this year in Topeka and for years to come. Choking the flow of tax revenue compounded problems that were already growing. These cuts in effect defunded nearly $2 billion in programs and services enacted before the Brownback Administration took office. Just getting back to parity with those commitments and then coping with our looming challenges will require the public to know the facts, stay anchored in reality and demand effective accountable decisions from our leaders.

Dr. Mark Peterson teaches political science at the college level in Topeka.

One hundred years ago, John D. Rockefeller became the world’s first billionaire (in dollars). Other “robber barons” soon followed, and as of today, there are roughly 2,000 billionaires in the world. Already living the opulent lifestyle of their dreams, their goals in life have evolved from improving their quality of life to winning a highly exclusive game of real-life monopoly.

Their life aspirations become oriented around pursuing the ultimate symbol of success, the top of the Forbes 500 list, with Bill Gates currently leading the pack and Kansas’ richest native sons, the Koch brothers, shortly behind. Their strategies include channeling strategic campaign contributions to the right combination of legislators and presidential candidates with the goal of a profitable return via regressive taxation, made feasible in part by cutting expenditures that do not benefit the upper classes (Medicaid, Social Security, Children’s Health Insurance Program, public education).

Although their growth in wealth has been impressive since President Obama took office, the liberal economic policies of progressive income taxation and the estate tax have worked to redistribute much of their massive, accumulated wealth back down to the lower and middle classes, a policy economic conservatives believe has unfairly impeded their progress.

But good news! The conservative tax legislation recently passed by our Republican legislators will greatly lower their income, corporate and estate taxes, making the new “brass ring” feasible within the lifetimes of many of these younger billionaires, becoming the world’s first trillionaire. The latest tool in their arsenal, getting the government to borrow hundreds of billions of dollars to fund tax relief for them, barring the pittance they designate for the middle class, a strategy enabling them to describe the legislation as “tax relief for working families.” The actual beneficiaries of this tax policy work on a three-martini lunch.

Real working Kansans will only laugh, or in my case curse, at Jerry Moran’s assertion that these borrowed billions will be used to hire more employees or increase wages, or that targeting billionaires for tax relief will stimulate the economy. As happened in Kansas, U.S. wages and employment will not go up, only the national debt. Billionaires like Charles Koch and Donald Trump will see big returns as they invest their tax savings overseas in the many rapidly industrializing countries with growing economies.

In Hays, where the state and federal governments channel tax relief to the rich and high local sales taxes cut the spending power of the poor, the economy will continue to stagnate.

Gary Brinker, Hays

Farmers’ markets are growing across the state and continue to be an important source of fresh fruit, vegetables, meat, dairy and other agricultural products. In 2017, 85 farmers’ markets were registered with the Kansas Department of Agriculture’s Central Registration of Farmers’ Markets.

The Regional Workshop we are hosting in Great Bend is set for Friday, February 2nd, from 9 a.m. – 3 p.m. at Trinity Lutheran Church – Fellowship Hall, 2701 24th Street. I would encourage current and prospective farmers’ market vendors to attend this event. The Great Bend regional workshop will cover the following topics:

• Marketing and pricing tips
• Growing in high tunnels 101
• Regulations on selling meat, eggs & poultry direct to consumer
• SNAP Program and sales tax for vendors
• Vendor marketing and communication
• Food safety inspection requirements
• Kansas Senior Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program Certified Farmer Training *
*The Kansas Senior Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program Certified Farmer Training session is required for all new farmers who wish to participate in the KSFMNP. All farmers must complete training and submit an annual agreement with KDHE. Visit www.kdheks.gov/sfmnp for details.

Vendors may also bring their sales scale to get tested and certified for FREE by the Kansas Department of Agriculture.

Registration for the workshop is $20 per participant, which includes lunch. Lunch cannot be guaranteed for those registering after January 19th. Participants may register online at FromtheLandofKansas.com/FMConference or you may stop by either of the Cottonwood Extension District offices at 1800 12th Street in Great Bend or 601 Main Street in Hays.

There are a total of five Regional Workshops for Farmers’ Market vendors across Kansas. The dates and sites include: Colby, February 1; Wichita, February 3; Olathe, February 9; and Chanute, February 10. Sponsors for the workshops include: K-State Research & Extension, Kansas Department of Agriculture; Kansas Department of Health and Environment and From the Land of Kansas. The From the Land of Kansas and Farmers’ Market Annual Conference will be March 1-2 in Manhattan. This conference is for Kansas based businesses and farmers’ market managers.

Donna Krug is the Family & Consumer Science Agent and District Director with K-State Research & Extension – Cottonwood District – Great Bend Office. You may reach her at [email protected] or (620)793-1910.