High court appointees announced

Topeka ? A district judge and two attorneys have been nominated for a seat on the Kansas Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court Nominating Commission announced Monday that it submitted to Gov. Bill Graves the names of Shawnee County District Judge Marla Luckert and attorneys M. Warren McCamish, of Kansas City, and Lawton Nuss, Salina.

Topeka (ap) The state ended its 2002 fiscal year on June 30 with $211.7 million less than expected in the general fund.The Kansas Legislative Research Department issued a report last week containing the final official numbers.Preliminary estimates released earlier this year suggested the state would fall $200 million or more short of a revenue forecast made in March by state officials and university economists.Here are the figures, in millions of dollars:

Source Estimate Actual Difference % Off
Individual Income Taxes $2,010.0 $1,829.6 ($180.4) (9.0)
Retail Sales Taxes $1,485.0 $1,470.6 ($14.4) (1.0)
Compensating Use Taxes $255.0 $233.6 ($21.4) (8.4)
Corporate Income Taxes $100.0 $94.0 ($6.0) (6.0)
Insurance Premium Taxes $71.2 $85.0 $13.8 19.4
Alcohol Excise Taxes $61.8 $61.1 ($0.7) (1.1)
Mineral Severance Taxes $54.8 $55.7 $0.9 1.6
Tobacco Excise Taxes $53.0 $52.3 ($0.7) (1.3)
Estate Taxes $50.0 $48.1 ($1.9) (3.8)
Banking Taxes $24.0 $28.0 $4.0 16.7
Interest Earnings $38.5 $38.7 $0.2 0.5
Other Revenues $117.3 $112.2 ($5.1) (4.3)
Total Revenues $4,320.6 $4,108.9 ($211.7) (4.9)

* The compensating use tax is paid on expensive items, such as appliances, purchased outside Kansas.

The nine-member commission selected the three from among 18 applicants seeking to replace Justice Edward Larson, who plans to retire Sept. 4.

Graves has until Sept. 20 to pick a replacement, and if he doesn’t, the decision will be made by Chief Justice Kay McFarland.

Luckert, 47, has been chief judge in Shawnee County for two years and was appointed to the bench in 1992 by then-Gov. Joan Finney. Before that, she was an attorney in private practice. She received her law degree from Washburn University in 1980.

McCamish, 55, has been practicing law in the Kansas City metropolitan area for three decades. He also has served as a part-time municipal judge for the city of Edwardsville since 1975. He received his law degree in 1973 from Kansas University.

Nuss, 49, has been an attorney in Salina for 20 years, and his clients include the Salina Board of Education. He also served as a special prosecutor for the city of Salina in 1994-96 and has been a federal court mediator since 1992. He received his law degree from Kansas University in 1982.

Larson, 69, was appointed to the state’s highest court by Graves in 1995. He also served on the state Court of Appeals for eight years and before that was an attorney in Hays.