Like daffodils, robins or new leaves on the trees, another sign of spring will soon be here– the annual Walk Kansas program from K-State Research and Extension. Now is the time to begin forming your teams for this statewide health and wellness program.

Walk Kansas runs from March 19 to May 13 this year. It’s a program that’s open to anyone who’s interested in working toward or maintaining a healthy lifestyle at any fitness level. Last year, more than 14,000 people participated in the accessible program.

The eight-week program is team-based, with six people to a team. Participants do not even have to live in Kansas. Many teams form with family members or friends in other parts of the country and around the world. “Technology connects us,” said Sharolyn Jackson, K-State Research and Extension family and consumer science specialist and Walk Kansas coordinator.

“Walk Kansas addresses critical issues in our state,” Jackson said. “Less than half of Kansas adults meet the minimum recommendations for physical activity (150 minutes a week of moderate exercise) and only 19 percent eat enough fruits and vegetables. These simple behaviors affect health.”

Chronic disease is responsible for more than 70 percent of health care costs. If Americans were to stop smoking, exercise regularly and eat well, they could prevent up to 80 percent of heart disease and stroke, 80 percent of type 2 diabetes and 40 percent of cancers.

“Think of health as something you earn every day, just like you work to bring home a paycheck,” Jackson said. “If you practice healthy lifestyle behaviors, you can delay and even prevent chronic disease. If you have an illness, symptoms can be managed better if you make choices that support a healthy lifestyle.”

The cost for Ellis County Walk Kansas participants is $8 per person. Purchasing an optional t-shirt is an additional cost. Participants receive a weekly emailed newsletter along with local events and classes. Registration will open for Ellis County teams on Monday, February 27. Teams are encouraged to register by March 10.

Teammates do not have to walk or exercise together, but are encouraged to connect and support each other. Participants log minutes of moderate or vigorous exercise daily and report online or to their team captain. Activities besides walking, such as strengthening exercises, yoga, bike riding, team sports, swimming and others count toward Walk Kansas minutes.

The goal is to meet one of three challenges the team sets for itself before the program starts:

Challenge 1 – Each person reaches the minimum goal for physical activity – 2-1/2 hours of moderate-to-vigorous activity per week. Collectively the team’s exercise distance would add up to 423 miles – the equivalent of the distance across the state of Kansas.
Challenge 2 – Take the equivalent of a meandering trek diagonally across the state from Troy to Elkhart. Each person logs 4 hours of activity per week which would take the team total to 750 miles.
Challenge 3 – Walk the equivalent of the perimeter of Kansas – 1,200 miles – with each person logging 6 hours of moderate-to-vigorous activity per week.

Walk Kansas began in 2001 and now reaches more than 14,000 people a year. More than 254,000 people have participated since it began.

“Health brings a freedom we often take for granted until we no longer have it,” Jackson said. “Preserving and protecting your health is what Walk Kansas is all about.”

For information on how to register your team, contact the Ellis County Extension Office, 785-628-9430, or check out team materials on our website at www.ellis.ksu.edu under Health & Nutrition.

Linda K. Beech is Ellis County Extension Agent for Family and Consumer Sciences.

Undoubtedly many informed Kansans were upset by events in the Kansas Capitol last week. Deliberating at nearly the speed of prairie lightning, the Kansas House and Senate had considered and passed, by nearly veto-proof margins, tax legislation which made progress toward resolving the structural deficit that has disordered the state’s finances for the past four years.

They accomplished this in a little over four weeks – laying it on the governor’s desk just in time for him to pan the effort before a friendly Kansas Chamber of Commerce audience. There he gave progressives the raspberry for even thinking he would deny his signature program, added a little tease (“I will not sign this bill”) that suggested it might become law without his signature, and then threw the work of moderate Republican and Democratic legislators (HB2178) into the ash bin with an early morning veto on February 21st – 29 days into the session.

Should Brownback opponents despair? Partisan leaders in both the Kansas House and Senate have shown themselves able “to give peace a chance.” House Speaker, Ron Ryckman, Jr., and less enthusiastically, Senate President Susan Wagle, appear intent upon resolving the tax problem with bipartisan support. Indeed they must try again, and perhaps embrace a better product. There is no alternative to finding a structural fix to the fiscal crisis confronting Kansas, and HB2178, good as it was, still came up short of a complete solution.

Without the return of the tax on LLC pass-through profits and reinstatement of a third income tax bracket Kansas has no humane and effective means of covering the ongoing, and rising disparity between revenue and expected state spending. In the coming fiscal year the gap may reach a half-billion dollars, and go on climbing given existing spending commitments and the state’s predicted economic and demographic trends. HB2178 gets the problem about half fixed which still means that an additional $350 – 450 million in cuts or revenue have to be found for the years after Fiscal 2018. The governor’s proposals for increased consumption taxes, more one time cash round-ups, deferring pension obligations and another daylight robbery of the Kansas Bank of KDOT have been scorned by progressives and conservatives alike.

The House mustered a veto override majority in response to the governor’s veto. As the senate override failed, Senator Wagle remained above the fray expressing hope for significant spending reductions in the state budget to reduce the need for increased revenue. In the past, Senator Wagle has demonstrated pragmatism. If she aspires to higher office in 2018, she’ll have to show effective bargaining skills. She can start by holding a majority of moderate senate Republicans, retaining needed Democrats and persuading three or four more conservatives for a veto override majority on an effective, durable revenue solution.

Slashing spending alone is fantasy given rising needs of an aging population, little expansion in the earning workforce, low but economically unstoppable inflation, and the necessity to repay what has been “borrowed” to cover the financial shortfalls of the last four years. Cooperation between the moderates, progressives and realist conservatives negotiating serious, meaningful, and effective fixes to things like KPERS, the “suitable provision for finance” in K-12 education, and an adequate healthcare support system focusing on the needs of poor families with minor children and the disabled must be accomplished, and will require leadership.

If Kansans really wanted to get on the Brownback “glidepath to zero” program, they would not have dumped all those conservatives and backed all those moderates and Democrats in the last election cycle. If Senator Wagle wants the next job, she’ll need to put daylight between herself and the governor, make the bargain of a lifetime with twenty-seven members of the Kansas Senate, and show Kansans generally that she is the leader they need.

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

Click to play the audio or read below.

If anyone ever complained about having been born at the wrong time, it might be those of us who came onto this earth during the period of 1929 to 1931. Just look at our calendar record.

The Stock Market kicked off all the trouble by crashing in late 1929 and I was born in mid-1930, but I accept no responsibility for that.  From 1932 through 1939, The Dust Bowl and the Great Depression caused havoc: World War II from 1941 to 1945 affected every American: the Korean conflict extended our problems. In other words, those of us who were born about 1930 were 24 years old before we enjoyed any peace and quiet.

However, I was blessed to meet and marry a wonderful girl in 1950, so I enjoyed a ton of happiness during an otherwise tough period.

World War II was an extremely difficult time for almost every American.  Nearly every family suffered some kind of loss. And there also were shortages of many things that most people had taken for granted for many years.

Not long after the war started, it became necessary to reduce the use of these products with a very restrictive rationing plan.  Rationing of course is the means of requiring cut backs of certain civilian home products in order to provide enough of these products for our armed forces personnel, both at home and overseas. There were many, many things that most of us relished and enjoyed everyday that had to be curtailed or sharply reduced.

To oversee the broad rationing program, some 8,000 Ration Boards were created in America  There were as many or more Ration Boards as there was Draft Boards. As I recall, the Ration Board members were appointed by the County Commissioners who knew the pulse of that area the best.

It was a  thankless job to say the least, but each Board member received a small stipend for their time and effort.  Board members were usually well acquainted with those they regulated and so it was inevitable that bad feelings would sometimes crop up that would be remembered for several generations.

The product that hit home the hardest was the rationing of gasoline. An “A” sticker for your windshield indicated that you were entitled to 4 gallons of gasoline a week, and that was the most common issue, depending on the distance the family needed to travel to fulfill the obligations of their family. It was seldom enough. Farm families who had to drive greater distances to get their kids to school, usually received a “B” sticker, good for 8 gallons a week. Farmers also used gasoline in their tractors and trucks, so other amounts were authorized. There was also a “C” sticker, mainly for sales people and truckers, and an  “X”  sticker for Congressman.

A set of tires were expected to last a year. Sugar rationing was tough for housewives, as well as oils and fats and meat. The list was long.

Certainly, the War caused deprivation.  But nothing as serious as losing a family member who was serving us all overseas.

Kay Melia is a longtime broadcaster, author and garden in northwest Kansas.

I recently sat on an examination committee for a masters student from Saudi Arabia. She was asked to provide the formula for making a certain quantity of 70 percent alcohol from a stock of 95% alcohol. In seconds, she turned to the board and rapidly wrote out the exact formula for the requested amount. An American graduate student would have taken a minute or two; some would have gotten it wrong.

“When did you first learn algebra?” I asked.

“Fourth or fifth grade,” she replied. I smiled. This is also the time Asian students begin algebra. American schools of education tell state boards of education that a child’s brain is not developed enough to understand algebra until just before high school.

I have lectured at over two dozen Chinese normal universities and I have fun with this remark. When I tell them that the U.S. delays algebra because kids cannot learn it when young, they scoff because their elementary students are learning it quite well, thank you.

“Person who say it cannot be done should not get in way of person doing it” is a saying I would like to put into fortune cookies and hand out to American education schools. But Chinese fortune cookies are another American falsehood.

When American schools delay teaching algebra until 8th or 9th grade, this pushes off physics, chemistry, and the portions of other sciences that require algebra, until the last half of high school. Meanwhile, students in Asia and the Middle East begin to study chemistry and physics well before middle school. As a result, they have much higher rates of students entering engineering, physics, chemistry and molecular biology than in the United States. Their students take nearly three times the course work in science as U.S. students in K–12. The science literacy level of the American public is so far behind other developed countries that we must rely on their students to feed our science pipeline.

The National Science Foundation National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics updates and releases data on the numbers of doctoral recipients at U.S. colleges and universities each year. They break down the doctoral graduate numbers by U.S. citizens versus temporary visa holders. Data show that the more a science requires a command of mathematics, the more we rely on foreign students in science.

From 1985 to 2015, foreign students earning a biology doctorate at U.S. universities grew from 934 to 3,262 (from 16 percent to 26%). If biology was split into molecular biology versus field biology, the gap would be dramatic with mostly U.S. students in fieldwork and mostly foreign students in lab coats.

Annual foreign students receiving U.S. doctorates in the physical and earth sciences rose from 2,618 to 3,481 (from 21 to 36 percent). In mathematics and computer sciences, the numbers rose from 332 in 1985 to 1,924 in 2015 (from 33 percent to half of U.S. doctoral graduates).

Most alarming are the numbers in engineering, where the U.S. failure to make the metric system a part of out native language is involved. Foreign students made up 1,423 or 45 percent of U.S. doctorates in 1985 and 5,122 or 52 percent in 2015. Walk into a U.S. university engineering classroom and it will seat a majority of foreign students.
Stupidly require all foreign-born scientists to leave the U.S. and American science would collapse. –Engineering and physics immediately, and field biology last. In the 1940s, American science gained a foreign accent due to the influx of scientists fleeing the Third Reich. A substantial portion of “American” Nobel Prizes were these foreign-born and foreign-educated scientists. Many more-recent winners came to the U.S. for better research facilities. We do not produce enough nuclear physicists to run our own labs.

We recruit many of the foreign-born students that we graduate. And we import more scientists. But this is becoming more difficult as their standard of living and opportunities back home improve.

Both American technology industries and our research universities rely on H1B visas to import critical science talent. But some propose to cut the H1B program and “hire Americans first.” The problem is that the U.S. educational system does not produce anywhere enough scientists. And that problem starts with a K–12 curriculum that teaches far too little science. And teaches science and math far too late.

One of the focus areas for the Kansas National Education Association-Retired (KNEA-R) is financial stability in retirement. Over 90,000 Kansans, including public-school staff, firefighters, law-enforcement officers, judges, state employees, and city and county employees, receive KPERS benefits. In 2015, Kansas retirees received a total of $1,376,872,982 from KPERS.

Ellis County retirees receive and spend $17,283,473. We pay our car and property tax, we buy food and other goods which bring in sales tax, we pay income tax on our investments, and we pay for our medical care and prescriptions. We contribute to the economy of Kansas.

For 26 years the Kansas Legislature granted periodic cost of living adjustments for KPERS recipients. However, in the past 19 years, not one such adjustment has been made. During that same period of time, the cost of living (as measured by the Consumer Price Index, CPI) has risen 45%. Someone who retired in 1993 at a salary of $1120 per month would need a CPI adjusted benefit of $1757 today just to break even.

The 2017 Legislators must to fix our revenue and budget problems. They need to pay their “employer” share of KPERS, as current employees are mandated to do. They need to stop “borrowing by not making employer payments”. They also must give hardship benefit adjustments to the eldest of our retirees, whose buying power has so greatly diminished over the years. No retiree should have to choose between food or medicine.

Chris Huntsman, KNEA-R President, Topeka

Every spring across the vast, open Flint Hills grasslands, fires blaze for miles. The flames lick at the blue Kansas sky as the brown, dry grass crinkles, crackles and bursts into orange.

Viewed up close or at a distance, prairie fires are mesmerizing. Beautiful and frightening at the same time, it’s hard to take your eyes away from this annual ritual.

These fires aren’t a recent phenomenon and they aren’t strictly for the viewing pleasure of those traveling up and down our highways. Long before civilization invaded the prairie, fires were ignited by lightning storms and the charred prairie restored the health of the native grasses.

Native Americans set the first prairie fires. They used the fire to attract bison for easier hunting.
Today, farmers, stockmen and landowners continue to use fire as a range management tool while maintaining the economic viability of the Flint Hills.

The artificially ignited controlled burning of the tall-grass prairie in east-central Kansas is an annual event designed to mimic nature’s match. It’s part of a tradition, part of the culture of the communities and the people who inhabit this region of our state.

Fire remains an essential element of the ecosystem. Burning pastures is one of the best management tools for maintaining the native prairie.

This annual pasture burning only occurs for a few days each year. It is not a procedure that is drawn out and lasts for weeks. Weather conditions dictate the length of the burning seasons most years.

Not every cattleman burns his pastures every year. Instead, individual ranchers and landowners survey and decide each spring, which pastures will benefit and produce a healthier, lush grass for livestock after burning. Often neighbors plan and burn together, giving them more hands to ensure a safe, controlled burn.

Forage quality and ecosystem health are both dependent on fire. Without fire, woodlands take over the Flint Hills and the livestock industry loses a valuable resource.

Kansas State University recommends burning take place when wind speeds are between five and 15 miles per hour, relative humidity is from 40 to 70 percent and temperatures fall in the range of 55 to 80 degrees.

Landowners in all counties must notify local officials prior to planned, controlled burns. This notification is key to preventing prescribed fires from turning into accidental wildfires and ensuring burning is allowed under the existing conditions.

The Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) has a Kansas Flint Hills Smoke management plan to help alleviate air quality issues in urban areas generated by prescribed burning in the Flint Hills region. Coupled with the associated web tools, it provides producers better decision-making abilities when planning and implementing prescribed fires.

Producers can assess how the smoke from their burns may impact urban areas downwind. Information like this can make a difference in keeping the ozone within acceptable levels regulatory restrictions from impacting ranchers. This website is www.ksfire.org.

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

Hello from Agra!

This week is known as “turn around” and marks “half-time” of the 2017 legislative session. Many of us are spending the week holding legislative updates and preparing for the second half.

So far, the Kansas House has passed 91 bills this session. 53 bills were passed by the House this past week. Yet again this session financial issues are the main focus and we are just beginning to formulate the future of a new school finance formula.

Last Wednesday, the House overrode the Governor’s veto on the Tax bill (HB 2178) with a vote of 85 to 40. Following the Senate sustaining the Governor’s veto of HB 2178, on a vote of 24-16, the House Taxation Committee returned to considering other revenue options. On Thursday the 23rd, the Committee passed out two bills: HB 2315, the Governor’s tax proposal (without recommendation) and HB 2370, which is identical to the HB 2178. Additionally, the Committee introduced two bills. One I introduced contains contents of HB 2178 without a top income tax bracket and the other is the LLC non-wage business tax exemption. These are starting points once again and we will continue to work with anyone who wants to find solutions and the votes to get something to pass and will be enacted.

There are some committees which are called exempt, because they can still originate bills and pass out of committee for the house to consider. A couple of those are appropriations and taxation.

The Appropriations Committee will return to complete its hearing of the Budget Committee reports. The Committee will hear the final report on March 13 and then begin the process of putting together recommendations into the Mega budget bill (HB 2364) and the Judicial Budget bill (HB 2365). Another key piece of budget legislation is HB 2052, the rescission bill (the FY ’17 budget bill) and the Pooled Money Investment Portfolio bill (HB 2161), which currently reside in Senate Ways and Means.

On March 6th, Non-exempt committees will begin work on Senate bills and any referred blessed House bills.

The K-12 Education Budget Committee has heard school finance formulas, which have all been “blessed” or exempted from legislative deadlines, and will begin deciding which components will become the final Committee bill. The Committee on Children and Seniors will continue looking at HB 2019, which establishes a foster care oversight committee, and HB 2232, which addresses electronic monitoring in adult care homes.

The Government Technology, and Security Committee requested three bills to be blessed (HB 2331, HB 2332, HB 2359) and will continue working these bills to address internet security concerns in Kansas.

The other big issue so far this session has been the possibility of Medicaid expansion. Earlier this month, HB 2064 received three days of live-streamed testimony in the Committee on Health and Human Services Committee, with one day each devoted to all proponents, one to all opponents, and those neutral. Over 150 individual stakeholders, hospitals, advocacy groups, and private citizens expressed their concerns for and against the measure to expand Medicaid.

On Monday, the committee made a motion to table the bill until next year, which failed to receive a majority of vote with a vote count of 8-8. A second motion was made to table the bill until April 3rd, which prevailed with a vote count of 9-8, successfully tabling the bill. Later on Wednesday, the Committee of the Whole adopted an amendment to insert the contents of HB 2064 into HB 2044, bypassing the committee process and effectively modifying the bill for the purpose of expanding Kansas’ Medicaid Program. Five other amendments were proposed to revise the bill in its new form, but all were rejected by the body. The final vote of the amended bill was 81-44. The bill has been sent over to the Senate and has been referred to the Public Health and Welfare Committee.

I voted against the bill. While I talked with many health care providers and hospital administrators, I believe there are still a number of unanswered questions on how the plan will be supported if and when the federal government stops paying as much as they start out with. I do not want to place more of a burden on land owners in the form of property taxes, as that is the way I see this possibility playing out.

As always, when you come to Topeka, plan on stopping by the office. It is in Room: 352-S. The phone number is: (785) 296- 7463 and email is: [email protected] and my personal cell number is (785) 302-8416. You can also follow along with what is going on through social media: kenforkansas on Facebook, @kenrahjes on twitter or my website: kenforkansas.com.

It is my honor to serve as your representative.

Ken Rahjes, (R-Agra), is the 110th District State Representative.

Well, what have we here? A moderate Republican/Democrat majority in the Kansas House, and maybe, just maybe, in the Senate?

And we’re still in Kansas.

The keys were, of course, some votes in the House last week, where Democrats who in recent years had probably considered forming a support group after losing votes on issues found that they had an apparently solid—so far—core of maybe 35 moderate Republicans to vote with them on bills.

The so-called moderate coalition doesn’t run things, but it has enough votes on tax, Medicaid expansion and labor-ish issues to determine just what can be passed or killed in the House.

The Senate? Not quite so much. There is a moderate coalition in that chamber, but it hasn’t been fully tested. Example: The Senate passed the tax increase bill that the House’s moderate coalition voted over to it, but without enough votes to override Gov. Sam Brownback’s veto of the bill.

But…it’s early.

The relatively dramatic shift in the House and the Senate came at last year’s GOP primary elections, where some of each chamber’s most conservative Republicans were defeated, and in a case or two, at the general election where Democrats picked up seats in both chambers. It was an election where most Republicans weren’t running pictures on their campaign ads and flyers of them within arm’s reach of Brownback.

The governor, as conservative as they come, is having to wrestle with the Legislature led by Republicans—but not his style of conservative Republicans.

That moderate Republican/Democrat coalition, well it’s shown strength on passing from the House bills expanding Medicaid (we call it KanCare here), putting due process back in the business of firing experienced schoolteachers, and of course, the tax business.

After the House overrode and the Senate sustained the tax bill veto, both chambers introduced different tax bills needed to balance state finances for the upcoming two years. Each introduced a bill that would increase income tax rates and/or brackets and restart taxing the non-wage income of members of LLCs and some other small business formations.

And…each chamber introduced in bill form the governor’s tax plan, which boosts taxes on liquor, cigarettes, raises some fees and raises less than half the revenue that the Legislature-thought-up tax bills do.

Why would they do that?

It’s to get the governor’s attention. His tax plan doesn’t raise enough money for the state and those Brownback bills are widely believed to be the tool that lawmakers may have to use to show the governor that he is out of sync with the Republican-led and moderate Republican/Democrat dominated Legislature. Another veto, and leaders put his plan up for a vote, defeat it with big enough margins to embarrass Brownback, and then make clear that they are prepared to take control of state government through overriding his vetoes.

This Republican governor/Republican legislature split is going to be solved, somehow, this session because the state needs to make up the $325 million deficit to end the fiscal year and to put in place a tax plan that won’t require House members to vote to raise taxes on their constituents in the spring of the year in which they will seek their votes in the fall.

Where do Democrats land in all of this? Surprisingly, probably because of the governor’s stance on taxes, they get a little more latitude to raise income tax rates on all Kansans, not just those LCCs that nearly everyone wants to tax.

This moderate majority we’ve all heard about has taken its first laps around the track, and we’re interested in where it goes from here…

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.

February 24, 2017

Veto Override Falls Short
Wednesday, February 22nd, 2017 House Bill 2178 failed to garner the necessary number of votes to override the governor’s veto in the Senate. The bill, which was aimed at changing the state’s tax structure by creating a third tax bracket while also eliminating the LLC tax exemption, had been passed in final action by the House of Representatives on Wednesday, February 16th, and by the Senate on Friday, February 19th, in emergency final action. Governor Brownback vetoed the bill the morning of Wednesday, February 22nd, which sent the bill back to the House of Representatives for a motion to override the veto.

The motion passed in the House of Representatives with 85 votes in favor to 40 against. However, the same motion failed in the Senate with a vote of 22 in favor to 16 against. Even though I did not vote in favor of House Bill 2178 when it initially passed the House, I did vote to override the Governor since this tax package did pass both chambers and it would give us a direction to move forward in the session.

Appropriations: Committee Work
The Appropriations Committee continued hearings and working reports from the Budget Committees. Agency Budgets that we reviewed included the Department of Children and Families, the Department for Aging and Disability Services, Board of Regents, Higher Education Institutions, and the Kansas Department of Health and Environment. In addition, we heard House Bill 2180, which increases the health maintenance organizations (HMO) privilege fee from 3.31% to 5.77%. There were several conferees who supported the bill to restore the Governor’s 4% cut to providers. Opponents did not support the retroactive nature of the bill, which makes it difficult for insurance companies to adjust to a rate increase, when plans are already in place.

On Thursday, February 16th, the Committee heard House Bill 2279. The bill extends the sunset by one year on driver license reinstatement fees which are transferred to the Judicial Branch Non-Judicial Salary Adjustment Fund. In 2014, the Legislature set aside a percentage for non-Judge salaries in the Judicial Branch. Other agencies receive these fees and saw a decrease in their percentages (KBI, KDHE). If the bill is not passed, the Judicial Branch will be $950,000 short, as they budgeted for the sunset to be extended. On Friday, February 17th, the Committee heard House Bill 2184, which extends the sunset date of the sales tax as revenue (STAR) bond financing act, from July 1, 2017 to July 1, 2022.

KanCare 2.0: Medicaid Expansion
On Wednesday, February 22nd, the House of Representatives, passed an amended version of House Bill 2044 (Medicaid Expansion) by a vote of 83 in favor to 40 against after several long hours of debate. House Bill 2044 was amended to include provisions which would enable the state government to expand Medicaid coverage to citizens and legal residents of the state under the age of 65. The bill requires a significant number of changes to the current structure of the KanCare Program. During the debate for the amendment that was added to include KanCare 2.0, or Medicaid Expansion, many questions were posed: What would be the cost of implementation (which could be anywhere from $25 to $100 million annually)? What is the future of the Affordable Care Act with the Trump Administration and Congress? What is the ability for KanCare to handle the additional claims, especially because since its inception KanCare has had difficulty completing the existing claims?

Due to the fact that there were so many unanswered questions, and that this was presented in the form of an amendment, I voted, “No.” It did pass, 81-44.

Uncork Kansas
Last week the Commerce Committee held a two-day hearing on retail alcohol sales expansion, also referred to as “Uncork Kansas” (House Bill 2282). Essentially, this bill would allow grocery stores and other retailers to sell alcoholic beverages, other than cereal malt beverages (beverages containing more than 3.2%) On Monday, February 13th, the Committee heard statements from Uncork proponents, including representatives of Uncork Kansas, Retail Grocers Association of Greater Kansas City, Hy-Vee, and Dillon’s. They primarily advocated for free-market principles and noted that several other states have already expanded alcohol sales.

On Tuesday, February 14th, the Committee then heard from Uncork opponents, specifically the Kansas Wine and Spirits Wholesalers Association, Standard Beverage, Kansas Association of Beverage Retailers, Kansas Association for Responsible Liquor Laws, Kansas League of Municipalities, Culture Shield Network, the Women’s Temperance League and various liquor store owners. The opponents argued that liquor sales in grocery stores would be detrimental to family businesses, and would weaken local beverage sales and production. Since the hearing no action has been taken on the bill.

Floor Action
Last week the House of Representatives passed two important bills in final action on Friday, February 17th. The first being House Bill 2161, which passed by a vote of 98 to 25 and was carried by myself. House Bill 2161 related to state finances and requires the KPERS Board to liquidate the pooled money investment portfolio and to transfer that money to the State General Fund as a loan of $317.1 million to be repaid over a six-year period, starting in fiscal year 2019. The second bill was the Substitute House Bill 2052. The bill passed by a vote of 87 to 36 and I also carried this bill. The bill focuses on several important areas in regards to spending by the state as there were some amendments added to House Bill 2052 during the House Floor debate.

First the bill allocates funds to state agencies to replace older used motor vehicles, 130,000 miles for cars and 150,000 miles for trucks. Second it allocates 6 million dollars for evidenced based juvenile programs, via transfer with the KDOC. Lastly it establishes regulations on state agency expenditures by requiring state agency office expenditures regarding furniture, supplies, and equipment over $100 in value to be approved by the Director of the Budget. These approved funds are then to be recorded by the Director of Legislative Research for archiving for review by the House Appropriations and Senate Ways and Means Committees.

Contact Information
The Kansas Legislature has reached the point in the legislative calendar that is commonly referred to as Turnaround. This means that many of the bills that originated in the House must have been passed out favorably by Friday, February 24 and now head to the Senate. When we return on March 6, most of our focus will be those bills that passed the Senate and they will focus on the bills that passed the House.

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.

In the early 1970s, in response to the need for an organization representing trappers here in Kansas, the Kansas Fur Harvesters was born, and for 20 years now has sponsored annual fur auctions to help KS trappers market their wild caught fur.

Saturday, February 18, I attended this year’s auction at the fairgrounds in Abilene.

Fifteen year old Caitlin Cramer from Longford came with her dad Vance to help market the fur the two of them caught this year. Caitlin has two siblings and Vance says he took all three with him on his trap line when they were still so little they had to be carried.

Caitlin says she’s followed her dad around trapping since she was six or eight years old, and continues to go with him because she loves being outdoors and loves helping him trap. This year Caitlin, who also turkey hunts each spring, trapped muskrats on her own for the first time and caught twenty one, which she had with her to sell at the auction.

Years ago there were fur buyers in most communities and a trapper’s annual harvest of pelts could usually be sold with just a short drive. Today, with decreased interest in trapping and much lower prices paid for fur, a two to three hour drive is common to reach the nearest fur buyer. This year’s auction attracted ten fur buyers from all across Kansas, allowing trappers to present their harvest to multiple buyers at the same time in one place and fostering competition for their pelts.

Trappers put there furs together in groups of ten or twelve called “lots,” sorting them so the pelts of like – species are grouped together, then each lot is given a number. The lots are displayed on a table and an auctioneer takes bids from the group of buyers until that lot is sold. Buyers look at the size of the pelts, the quality of the fur and in some species, the color. For example, lighter colored gray and silver coyotes are usually the most valuable, and the wider, whiter and more spotted the belly of a bobcat pelt the more valuable it becomes. Prices also depend on which fur is in style and what fur is being used the most and for what.

Dave Sterling from Keats KS came to this year’s auction to sell his eleven beaver pelts. In 2004 Dave was a gunner in a Bradley Fighting Vehicle in Iraq when a rocket propelled grenade (RPG) came through the side of their Bradley, taking off his right hand and eventually causing him to lose most of his right arm. Today Dave wears a prosthetic arm with a hook and is known affectionately by his buddies as “Hook.”

A few years back Sterling got some traps from his former employer’s son, and that year, in his first attempt at trapping caught 78 raccoons. Two and a half years ago Sterling got involved with the organization Wounded Warriors United (not affiliated with the Wounded Warrior Project) and began teaching wounded veterans how to trap. Through contributions of equipment from major trapping supply dealers and contributions of money from individuals, Sterling has been able to give traps, trapping equipment and trapping DVD’s to several wounded vets he’s helping.

Sterling told me “When veterans get out of the military there is often a big hole when they don’t feel like they belong anymore. Getting guys (and gals) out of the house, off the couch and doing something is huge and can help greatly with the recovery process. As a wounded vet myself, I have different points of view that can help wounded vets with their recovery, so it’s as much therapy for me as it is for them.”

The vast majority of fur from Kansas trappers ultimately ends up at huge fur auctions in Canada. Even the fur purchased by buyers at Saturday’s auction, though it may be resold a few times to other buyers here in the lower forty-eight, will finally end up at one of the large Canadian auctions houses. Where our local auctions attract buyers from all across the state, those immense auctions attract buyers from around the world. China, Russia, Italy and North & South Korea all buy fur there; some because that’s where the big garment manufacturers are that use fur, some because wearing natural fur in their country is a status symbol and others because they know that real natural fur keeps them warmer than anything else.

While global buyer’s presence at those auctions creates competition for our wild caught fur, the downside is that prices they are willing to pay are affected by everything from the severity of their countries winter to the state of their economy. For example, sanctions placed against Russia by the US have dampened Russia’s willingness to purchase our wild fur at those auctions, and have drastically lowered the prices they’re willing to pay.

Matt Peak, furbearer biologist for the state of Kansas says that in years of good fur prices, wild caught Kansas fur can bring around one million dollars to the Kansas economy. Fur prices have been very low for a few years now so that number has been much lower. 1,446 pelts sold at Saturday’s auction for a total of $20,512. Bobcat pelts were the most valuable, averaging nearly $80, and coyote pelts went fairly well averaging just over $20. For several years running, beaver fur prices have been some of the lowest, and Dave Sterling’s eleven beaver pelts brought him only $42. By comparison muskrat prices have been reasonable and Caitlin’s much smaller muskrat pelts fetched her $55, still not much for all the work she put into catching them.

Some people around the country make a good living as damage control trappers, removing lamb and calf killing coyotes, or trapping beavers that flood valuable farm land, but in this day and age, trapping merely for the fur is not a money-making proposition. But trapping is not all about the money. It’s about crisp fall mornings and beautiful orange sunrises. It’s about figuring out how to match wits with God’s critters. Trapping is yet another way to Explore Kansas Outdoors!

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

Temperatures dropped and snowflakes flew long enough to blanket our yard and the field behind it. Despite a chilly reminder that winter isn’t quite over, I have spring on my mind. Recent days warm enough to wear short sleeves reminded me to deliver our grandkids’ sand and water table so they could enjoy it over spring break. Our youngest grand has already tried out hers out. Seeing a photo of that little blonde dumping shovels full of sand into her bucket recalled memories of her mom and aunt’s happy hours in their sand-filled tractor tire.

While we weren’t farmers with our own big equipment, friends who made a living driving a big John Deere offered us one of their gigantic discarded tires. We rolled it to a spot close to the back door so I could do dishes or cook while listening to our youngsters’ cheerful chatter as they sifted sand, wetted it, and used old measuring cups and bowls to mold castles and other fanciful structures inside their three-foot-wide rubber moat.

When I had time, I joined them in creating architectural wonders or baking luscious desserts concocted from ingredients available within their tire and the surrounding yard. Each of us selected a dainty plastic pan to form our pastry. Once we finished packing dampened dirt, we’d slowly remove our creation, hoping it didn’t crumble during the process. Using leaves and flowers we found in the yard, we decorated our culinary delights. The girls were wizards at designing inedible works of art. As good as these looked, only a chicken pecking for a little gizzard grit would enjoy eating them.

Every now and then, I’d hear wild shrieks and race outside to see sand flying. This signaled the girls had found a live bug in their dirt. Shovels flew like windmill blades to eject unwelcome intruders. Enough insect protein found its way into the sandbox so I didn’t have to worry a wayward amphibian would starve if it managed to fall or be placed inside that deep walled tire. I did intervene the year baby toads infested the yard.

Unbeknownst to us, the girls collected dozens of miniature toads and corralled them in their sandbox. These mottled -skinned creatures dug themselves shady holes and waited for flies and beetles to land within eating reach. At dusk, I discovered our daughters leaning over the tire to say good- night to their captives. This population was too great for the available resources so I intervened and made the girls relocate their livestock to a less restrictive environment. As they carried handfuls and pocketsful of toads to freedom, I heard them talking to them like I talk to my dogs. Gadfrey. Toads as pets in the sand box.

I suspect our grandkids will soon weary of bright colored sand and water tables. They live on ranches where discarded tractor tires abound. It won’t be long til our daughters join their tots to once again bake sandy confections and check for insects and toads. Heck, Grandma might have to see if she can still whip up one of those pies.

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.