Sunday feature: State of Kansas will have surplus of funds, how do we use it?
by James Jordan, Sumner Newscow — The state is going to have a surplus of funds this year, and a lot of people have ideas about what should be done with the money.
State Rep. Kyle Hoffman (R-Clearwater) believes the money could be used to lower taxes, especially sales tax. The Governor has advocated eliminating sales tax on food. Hoffman said it is likely that it will be on several areas, not just food.
“There will be tax relief of some sort. There may be a sales tax cut on food, but more than that. It won’t go to zero, but I think it will be a healthy reduction,” he said.
He would also like to use some of the money to pay some of the state’s debts and make some one-time purchases that would help the state.
He noted that Kansas has a high sales tax, so lowering that will probably be popular with other legislators.
Hoffman said the house sent the governor a reduction of sales tax on food before, but she vetoed it at that time.
Redistricting
Hoffman is also on the committee that is redrawing the district lines for the House and Senate. The House will have one map and the Senate will have another, and the two will be put together at some point. Each member of the House and Senate had the opportunity to say how they wanted their district to look.
“Each member has been able to give ideas of what their district should look like. Anyone can do that really,” he said. “We will be taking a look at those and try to be as fair as we can.”
The lines are redrawn every 10 years and are supposed to be based on population. In districts that have fewer people, the area will have to be increased to get it back to a certain level. Areas that have gained population should get smaller and have a similar number of people.
Election laws
Hoffman said Kansas election laws are among the best in the nation, but there may be some tweaking of bills to make it even better.
“We get emails from people saying we should adopt laws like Texas, or some other state has, and we already have that most of the time,” he said.
Voting machines are not supposed to be online. There could be a bill that would specifically forbid this. They may also change the deadline for votes to be counted. Currently, there is a three-day window after the election when votes may still be submitted and counted. A new bill would make the deadline midnight on election night.
Hoffman said there are a lot of ways to vote now, in addition to the standard voting at a polling place. You can mail it in or drop it off.
“It is in those three days where you can get into mischief. That is where you could get into a problem with votes being found,” he said.
Other items.
There may be a bill to deregulate hospitals and nursing homes to some degree, to help them get more people to work.
