Talk centered on taxes, KPERS and education at Monday night’s Farm Bureau legislative forum.
Jana Shaver of the state Board of Education, State Rep. Bill Otto, R-Le Roy, and State Sen. Jeff King, R-Independence, addressed a group of about 20 in the meeting room of Community National Bank.
Gov. Sam Brownback’s proposed budget was front and center most of the night.
King said he supported making the 1-cent sales tax implemented in 2009, and due to expire in 2013, permanent, “If it is used for education and will give some relief to local governments.”
Allowing small businesses to become tax-exempt would result in “a phenomenal growth of new startups,” King said, tongue in cheek. King said he envisions a class of professionals — lawyers, doctors, bankers — declaring themselves as small business operators in order to benefit from the exemption if it were enacted.
“The overall fairness worries me. How is it right for these people to pay no tax on their incomes? I’d rather see a broader base of taxing, but with a lower rate,” he said.
Rep. Otto agreed with King and spoke of his wariness of tax exemptions being directed toward local governments.
“We were told in 2006 that exemptions for the purchase of machinery and equipment would be directed to counties. That happened the first year, but hasn’t since. When you make a deal, you keep the promise,” he said.
King also was concerned about the governor’s tax plan, which he said was cobbled from two plans.
“It seems crazy,” he said. “I don’t mind lowering the tax on the upper bracket, but it really looks bad how the tax is structured for the lower brackets.”
King said lowering the property tax would be more beneficial for lower income households “because even if they don’t own property they see the result through higher rents passed on to them by landlords.”
King said he had heard the
governor was leaning toward re-funding the Kansas Arts Commission.
“I applaud the governor for turning over every stone to see if there was money to be saved. It would have been negligent had he not,” said King. “Sometimes there were savings, but not always, as with his decision to eliminate the Kansas Arts Commission.”
The state had funded the arts commission at $800,000 a year, which attracted an additional $1.3 million in federal and agency funding.
Brownback went against state lawmakers’ decision to keep the arts agency last year, and by executive order eliminated it. Public outcry has been intense since. This week Brownback said he would reinstate the agency, but to the tune of $200,000 and then require the commission to “prove its financial worth.”
King took the governor’s decision as an insult.
