Pittsburg Area Chamber of Commerce sponsors legislative breakfast

Blake Benson, Pittsburg Area Chamber of Commerce president, worried that nobody would come to the first legislative breakfast sponsored by the Chamber during the 2012 legislative session.

Instead, a large crowd came out Saturday morning to dePaul Hall, Via Christi Hospital, to hear local legislators give an update on what they’d been doing in Topeka. The bonus was a visit by Nick Jordan, Kansas secretary of revenue.

“The governor has asked me to be the point man on taxes,” he said. “Gov. Brownback is tuned in like radar on growing the economy in Kansas. He wants us to have a tax policy that affects the biggest number of Kansans without making winners or losers.”

This can be done, Jordan said, by making Kansas tax policy fairer, flatter and simpler, and by creating a pro-growth business environment that encourages financial investment in Kansas.

“We want to help small business in Kansas,” Jordan said. “Small businesses are the backbone of the Kansas and U.S. economy. If we go to a zero business income tax, that will bring in cash for growth.”

There is also need, he said, to debate on how best to help low-income families in Kansas.

“We need to remove social engineering from the tax program,” Jordan said. “If it works, fund it in a program.  It’s not that we don’t want to help the poor. We would expand the state income tax standard deduction for a single parent filing as head of household from $4,500 to $9,000.”

The governor’s tax plan calls for the elimination of numerous tax credits, including one for historic preservation. That brought a question from Vonnie Corsini of the Colonial Fox Theatre Foundation, which seeks to restore the historic building in downtown Pittsburg.

“How do you imagine it will be to talk to a funder if we can’t offer them a tax credit?” she asked Jordan.

He replied that, with the $1.6 billion increase in disposable income expected from the proposed tax policies, people would have more money to give, and added that this is not a big ticket item.

“It’s a big ticket item to us,” Corsini said.

Jordan also vowed that the state will be doing something to aid southeast Kansas, and State Sen. Bob Marshall, R-Fort Scott, brought up the topic of gaming.

“We would like the administration to get behind gaming in southeast Kansas,” he said.

State Rep. Bob Grant, D-Cherokee, said that this part of Kansas is currently losing money to Missouri and Oklahoma because SEK residents are going to casinos across the state lines.

“To us, gaming is economic development,” Grant said.

Marshall said that many breeders of racing dogs and horses are small mom-and-pop businesses.

“They’re being forced out of business now,” he said.

“I’ve lived here my whole life and we’ve had gaming when I was knee high to a duck,” said Crawford County Commissioner Carl Wood. “I see people 60, 70 or 80  years old in casinos, people on oxygen or in wheelchairs. It’s a social activity for them, instead of sitting in front of the TV and dying.”

Robert Wood, however, spoke of the dangers from gaming.

“If people have plenty of disposable income and want to gamble, I have no problem with it,” he said.

However, he believes building an SEK casino would lead some low-income people to make poor choices in what they do with their limited financial resources.

“I wonder how many of those people in wheelchairs are spending their disability checks,” he said later.
Those attending also heard legislators tell of their activities during the week.

“This session, there are so many issues that are so important and they have to get done, like redistricting and the budget and the governor’s new ideas on K-12 funding,” Marshall said. “We’re doing a lot in education. Just this week we worked in anti-bullying, and in transportation we’ve worked on beautification to get small towns to be able to put ads on highways. Under federal beautification laws, we can’t do that or we’ll lose federal money. Also, veterans coming back and wanting to be truck drivers, this will qualify them for the CDL license.”
Grant spoke about school financing.

“I can remember when we redid school finance and took it from being a burden on local taxpayers to the state,” he said. “Back then, education was funded by local property taxes and the highest in Crawford County was Pittsburg at 72 mills. Then a mix of sales and state income tax was added. I’m not sure the system is broken; I think it’s bent.”
State Rep. Terry Calloway said that he has been involved with a change that would allow physical therapists to take self-referring patients, rather than having to go to a physician for a referral to a therapist.

“There are guidelines,” he said. “If the patient doesn’t improve in a certain number of days, they go to a doctor. I hope this passes in the Senate.”

He’s also hoping for a sales tax holiday that would apply to back-to-school expenses for a three-day period, up to $2,000.

“The Association of School Boards does not agree with this sales tax holiday, which was such a surprise to me,” Calloway said.

Education is also working with KAMS, the Kansas Academy of Mathematics and Science at Fort Hays State University.

“This allows advanced high school students to take university math and science classes, but they have to live on the Fort Hays campus for that semester,” Calloway said.

He believes this provision blocks many students from taking advantage of the program and is working to change it.