Southeast Kansas, including Allen County, is bright orange — colorful but not good — on maps detailing unemployment numbers in Kansas, Karin Brownlee, Kansas secretary of Labor, said here Thursday morning.
Western Kansas, with many counties sparsely populated, enjoys unemployment in the 3 to 4 1/2 percent range, Brownlee said.
“Southeast Kansas’ rate is twice that high,” she said. “Troubling. We need to work on it.”
Maybe not, countered Larry Macha, owner of Se-Kan Asphalt and retail businesses.
“I put an ad in the paper offering a job for $11.50 an hour with benefits,” he said, which meant whoever was hired could gross $675 a week with a reasonable amount of overtime. “I got one reply,” whom Macha hired.
Macha also noted that his asphalt business had nine transports but only six were on the road this summer.
“I can’t hire drivers for the other three,” he lamented.
So, Macha wondered, is the unemployment figures for southeast Kansas an accurate reading.
“I think unemployment benefits are too long at 90-plus weeks,” he said, and exacerbates unemployment. “The biggest problem is finding labor(ers) willing to come to work.”
Don Becker, retired from a career in petroleum and one of Iola’s new council members, thinks too many and too strict government regulations are a bane for business and swell unemployment.
After he retired, Becker said he tried to grow a small oil-related business but threw up his hands and quit because of restrictive Environmental Protection Agency demands and clamps put on carbon emissions because of air-quality regulations.
“Refining (large or small) just isn’t profitable,” Becker said. “Profits are eaten by government regulations.”
Brownlee, whose department in Topeka tracks unemployment insurance, worker’s compensation and labor information, wasn’t completely blindsided by Macha’s and Becker’s commentaries.
“We may need to take a look” at unemployment compensation, she said, rattling off that Kansas was 23rd nationally in benefits and that federal reaction to the recession may have been too liberal in its approach to dealing with jobs gobbled by the flagging economy.
Brownlee was en route to Parsons for a business conference and, at the behest of Iola political activist Virginia Macha, stopped to visit with about 15 Iolans.
“WHAT ARE you doing to replace yourself,” Brownlee asked, with many in the crowd being in their 60s and 70s.
“The young can’t make a living here,” responded Bill Maness, former Iola mayor and now area representative for U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran. “Then, after leaving, they get in a comfort zone that discourages them from returning.”
Would college scholarship â¨assistance with strings attached for reciprocation prompt the young to return, Brownlee asked.
“They go off to college, KU or K-State, and by 22 or 23 they’re in a different stage of life,” and have adapted to where they are, said David Toland, executive director of Thrive Allen County.
“We’ve had some success in attracting (medical professionals) by offering financial incentives to close the gap between here and elsewhere,” he said.
But, he remarked, recruitment is more likely to succeed when those targeted are in their late 20s, “ready to settle down. He is an example, having returned to Iola after time in Washington, D.C.
A challenge to recruitment is educational opportunities, Toland added, noting that “we don’t have the tax base to provide excellence in education that they have in Johnson County. Education is an issue for young families.”
Brownlee suggested that innovation might make up for some of the educational challenges brought about by state aid cuts. USD 257 has lost more than $1.6 million in state aid since August 2008 and has had to make up for a substantial revenue losses this year.
Among her thoughts were cooperative efforts between districts. She said money could be saved by having one superintendent for the three primary districts in Allen County, along with congregating purchasing and sharing computer systems.
“You could cooperate with other districts to offer broader curriculum,” Brownlee proposed, saying that an example might be a certified nurse’s aid program that could launch students into a medical care field.
“I think we need to grow vocational programs,” said Virginia Macha. “Agriculture is big in Allen County and we need programs that relate for kids living every day on the farm.”
BROWNLEE stumped for Gov. Sam Brownback’s efforts to reduce statewide spending.
Brownback’s Cabinet members are collaborating — she is one — and working together more closely than ever before, she said.
An example, she said, was six or seven Cabinet agency representatives would visit a convenience store to track compliance of regulations.
“We’re going to try to do it now with two or three,” she said.
Maybe none would be better, Larry Macha philosophized.
“I spent $27,000 this year on gas leakage monitors for pumps (at his travel center at the east edge of Iola) and $7,000 on credit card readers. That hurt (financially).
“Fewer regulations, not fewer visits will help,” he said.
Jeff Johnson, president of Citizens Bank, 1206 East St., chimed in that regulations “doubled the cost” of construction when contaminated soil — smelters once were where the bank was built — is disturbed.
“We got a clean bill of health on our soil,” Macha said of his convenience store a few blocks to the east. “Then, (with tighter regulations) we had to put in three ground water monitoring wells and pay for (periodic) tests.”
“I think the feds have gone overboard with regulations,” Brownlee interjected, and pointed out that anyone ever legally involved with any ground considered contaminated remained in the loop if problems arose.
“Congress needs to limit the EPA,” she said. “They’re wrecking the U.S. economy. They’ve crossed the line trying to eliminate all risks.”
“WE HAVEN’T done a good job at marketing ourselves,” Maness said, of Iola and southeast Kansas. “Labor and commerce working closer together would be beneficial.”
Gov. Brownback has an interest in helping southeast Kansas develop and pull itself out of its economic morass, Brownlee said.
Developing and promoting tourism — she gushed about how this area reminds her of the Ozarks — would help, particularly if lakes controlled by the Corps of Engineers could be opened to more concentrated recreational development, she said.
“Oklahoma and Missouri have wonderful opportunities (in conjunction) with their lakes,” she said. “We could have (the same) in Kansas,” if the Corps of Engineers would permit.
What about Brownback’s proposal to do away with the income tax, John McRae, another former Iola mayor and Iola Industries president, asked.
“If it’s done, it will be a slow decline,” Brownlee said. “We’re looking at a number of scenarios.
“Nine state don’t have an income tax and all have had population growth. Half of all the new jobs in the nation have been in Texas,” one of the non-income tax states. Meanwhile, “Kansas was the only state last year that didn’t grow private sector jobs.
“But, we’re in the top four in the nation in government jobs compared to population,” Brownlee said.
Consolidation of counties and school districts seemed an obvious way to reduce public jobs, McRae said. Which, Toland added, would require financial incentives on the state’s part.
“The state doesn’t have any (excess) money,” was Brownlee’s retort, which is “all the more reason to pull together,” to talk cooperation and consolidation.
If that were to happen, it likely would require mandate from Topeka, Larry Macha supposed.
But, most in Topeka — legislators who would have the power to do so — “don’t want those mandates,” Brownlee said. “Cooperation or consolidation is an ultimatum that has helped in some places.”
