House pulls tobacco tax from budget

While debate continues in the Kansas Senate and House over proposed budgets for the fiscal year that ends June 30, there is one item that may be considered completely off the table.

In January, Kansas Gov. Mark Parkinson proposed a tax increase on tobacco products to help stem the tide of an seemingly ever-growing budget shortfall.

However, that appears to have been effectively taken out of any potential budget funding package, especially after the Kansas Senate widely defeated a measure to increase the tax by $1 per pack on Thursday.

And, it is border county legislators that have made the most noise about it.

“For us to get to 63-21-1, you have to have votes,” said State Rep. Julie Menghini, a Pittsburg Democrat referring to the number of votes needed for a budget to pass the House, Senate and including the Governor’s signature. “We have more votes with it out of the package than we did with it in.”

And Menghini said that she has no love for the tobacco industry, especially after her father Charles Weigand, died of lung cancer directly correlated to smoking.

The Senate Ways and Means Committee took the tobacco tax out of the budget funding package on the third, and final proposal that was advanced to the Senate floor. Parkinson’s one-cent sales tax increase was included in the overall package.

The tobacco tax increase would have added 55 cents to every pack of cigarettes. The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids had figured the benefits on added $1 to every pack.

According to that group, the state would have the potential to see $74.7 million in new cigarette tax revenues.

“It is good for southeast Kansas where the health rankings are, quite frankly, one of the worst in the state and tobacco is a big component to that,” said Chris Masoner, government relations director for the American Cancer Society in Kansas.

But, lawmakers said that it is more of a dollars and cents issue as opposed to a health issue.

“They go over and buy their cigarettes in Missouri and then they get their gas and milk over there and we lose that potential tax revenue,” said State Rep. Bob Grant, D-Cherokee.

Some legislators contend that the added tax not only takes away from potential tax revenues, but also hurts convenience stores and other outlets that sell cigarettes.

“This is not about tobacco for a lot of people,” Menghini said. “It is not about health to a lot of people, it is about dollars and cents.

“If it hurts those that sell those products, they are unhappy because Missouri already has an edge on things like cigarettes.”

While the general sales tax, as proposed by Parkinson in January, is still being considered, Masoner said that legislators are attempting to balance the budget with “speculative numbers” and that additional cuts may have to happen if those revenues come in under expectations.

“The irony is that the people that are trying to fight further cuts may have those cuts when that speculative revenue doesn’t show up,” Masoner said.

But, the bottom line is that Grant and Menghini, as well as several other border lawmakers, believe that not having the tobacco tax in a revenue package increases the chances of a proposal passing.

“I don’t want to watch this thing (budget package) go up in smoke,” Grant said.

On the Web:
American Cancer Society: http://www.cancer.org
Kansas Legislature: http://www.kslegislature.org

Matthew Clark can be reached at matthew.clark@morningsun.net or at 620-231-2600, Ext. 140