Topeka ? Kansas ranks 34th in the nation in pay equity between women and men, but a legislator with a bill that focuses on the problem can’t get a committee hearing on the proposal.

Rep. Melany Barnes, D-Wichita, said the measure deserves a full airing.

Veronica Winsor, who runs a dual ribbon machine at Hallmark Cards Inc., 101 McDonald Drive, looks over her handiwork with Mark Garrett, plant manager. Hallmark does not have a specific policy guaranteeing equal pay for men and women in comparable jobs, but it does abide by federal equal opportunity rules, said Hallmark spokeswoman Kristi Ernsting.

“Working families should get the money they deserve, and it would increase taxable income, which would help the state,” Barnes said.

The state is facing a record $500 million revenue shortfall for the fiscal year that starts July 1.

Barnes’ bill was referred to the House Business, Commerce and Labor Committee, chaired by Rep. Al Lane, R-Mission Hills. Lane said he hasn’t heard from anyone that gender pay issues were a big problem in Kansas.

“Nobody has contacted me about it as a problem,” Lane said.

Nationally, women earn an average of about 66 cents for every dollar earned by men, according to recent studies.

In Kansas, paying women as much as men in comparable jobs would raise family incomes and reduce the poverty rate of single mothers by nearly one-half, according to a study by the AFL-CIO and the nonprofit Institute for Women’s Policy Research.

The study said Kansas women were shorted nearly $2 billion per year because of wage discrimination.

“This is really a family issue,” said Sylvie Rueff of Lawrence, a lobbyist for the Kansas chapter of the National Organization of Women.

	Gender equity study

Barnes’ proposal would prohibit employers from paying less wages for equivalent jobs based on sex, race or national origin.

It also would require employers to keep records on their wages and report those records to the state.

In addition, the measure would establish a nine-member Equal Pay Commission that would study the extent of wage disparities in the public and private sector between men and women and minorities and non-minorities.

The commission would make recommendations to the governor and Legislature to try to eliminate and prevent such disparities.

Barnes said business groups had voiced concerns about the bill and that Lane’s refusal to have a hearing on the bill showed that those interests controlled the committee.

But Lane said the bill simply did not have any push behind it.

“We haven’t gotten into it that much,” he said.

The legislation prohibiting unfair wage discrimination is HB 2895.