by James Jordan, Sumner Newscow — The Kansas State Legislature begins the 2017 legislative session today, and will be facing budget shortfalls and school finance issues.

During the primary season voters ousted some conservatives and voted in moderates in what appeared to be a shift of power. Even so, the November national election which went overwhelmingly conservative, may have an effect on the Kansas Statehouse.

The political landscape for Sumner County has changed somewhat as well. Moderate Republican Anita Judd Jenkins of Arkansas City unseated conservative Kasha Kelley in the primary and then won the general election.

At the state senate level, Larry Alley of Winfield won the District 32 seat which had been vacated by Steve Abrams who chose to not run again.

Ed Trimmer of Winfield represents parts of Sumner County and is now the senior member for Sumner County at the statehouse.

Pete DeGraaf, an incumbent Republican, is the other representative that has some of Sumner County in his district.

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State Rep. Kyle Hoffman, R-Coldwater, believes the national election results will have a big effect on the session this year.

Kyle Hoffman

“It will have an effect,” Hoffman said. “On health issues, it would be crazy to expand Medicaid until we see what comes out of Washington.”

There had been a move to expand Medicaid, but with the future of the Affordable Care Act in question, the state is not likely to take up that issue.

A more pressing issue will be finance.

Hoffman said the state is looking at a sizable shortfall over the next six months, and then the state will have to put together a budget with even less revenue.

“My big worry is that we will try to find that money in tax increases, and that is not the way to go,” Hoffman said.

The governor’s tax breaks have come under a lot of criticism and many blame the state’s financial straights on those tax breaks for businesses.

Hoffman said he favors some tweaking, but he said the bigger problem is the economy which turned bad in 2008 and has not yet fully recovered.

“If the economy turns around, that will make a big difference in state revenues. If the economy had not gone south we would not be having this discussion about budget shortfalls,” he said.

Hoffman does favor tweaking the small business LLC tax exemption, but he wants to be careful in doing that.

He said there are problems with it, such as when a couple files a joint tax return and one owns a business while the other is being a regular wage earner. They do not get to count the losses for tax purposes in that situation so he would like to fix that problem.

Hoffman has also been named to the K-12 Education Budget Committee, which will be trying to come up with a new school finance formula. He hopes to make it simpler so people can better understand where the money is going.

Here is contact information for representatives of Sumner County:

Kyle Hoffman, Coldwater

Room: 481-W

Seat: 113

Phone: 785 296-7643

Email: kyle.hoffman@house.ks.gov

Anita Judd-Jenkins, Arkansas City

Room: 166-W

Seat: 103

Phone: 785 296-7671

Email: Anita.Judd-Jenkins@house.ks.gov

Ed Trimmer, Winfield

Room: 174-W

Seat: 13

Phone: 785 296-7122

Email: ed.trimmer@house.ks.gov

Pete DeGraaf, Mulvane

Room: 458-W

Seat: 39

Phone: 785 296-7693

Email: pete.degraaf@house.ks.gov

State Senator Larry Alley, Winfield

Room: 541-E

Seat: 14

Phone: 785-296-7381

Email: Larry.Alley@senate.ks.gov

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