Kansas legislators from the Lawrence area, from left: Rep. Barbara Ballard, D-Lawrence; Sen. Marci Francisco, D-Lawrence; Rep. Boog Highberger, D-Lawrence; Sen. Tom Holland, D-Baldwin City; Rep. Tom Sloan, R-Lawrence; and Rep. John Wilson, D-Lawrence.

Topeka — Lawrence-area lawmakers say they have low expectations for the 2016 session that starts Jan. 11, despite a large number of significant issues awaiting them.

Among the issues facing lawmakers this year: a projected $175 million budget shortfall for the fiscal year that begins July 1; the need to write a new school finance formula to replace the one lawmakers repealed in 2015; Medicaid expansion; funding for the state’s court system, which has been thrown into question by a recent Kansas Supreme Court decision; and addressing problems in the state’s foster care system, which has been accused of failing to adequately protect children in state custody and of systematically discriminating against same-sex couples when it comes to placing children.

“Given that it’s an election year, and given that the budget is in bad shape, and given that the school finance formula is a complex thing, I just don’t think we’re going to see much movement on some of these things that, one way or another, people want to see some movement on,” said Rep. John Wilson, D-Lawrence.

Rep. Tom Sloan, R-Lawrence, said he agrees that most of the tough decisions facing the Legislature will likely be pushed aside until after the 2016 elections.

“If taxes are to be revisited, it’ll be 2017,” he said. “If Medicaid expansion is to be revisited, it’ll be 2017. If it’s the fact that the highways are falling apart, it’s 2017. I think it’s a failure of leadership, but I’m sure that my colleagues on the other side of the issues would say that it’s just good fiscal management, that the economy will improve and we won’t need to worry about revenues.”

Still, some area lawmakers said they plan to push ahead on issues important to them, such as tightening the state’s open meetings and open records laws; lobbying and campaign finance reform; and issues affecting local governments.

Budget and revenue shortfalls

During the 2015 session, lawmakers passed a two-year budget covering the fiscal years that end on June 30, 2016 and 2017. In November, however, state officials lowered their estimates of how much revenue the state could expect to collect over that time, prompting Gov. Sam Brownback to make immediate budget cuts and other measures to prevent the state from going into a financial hole during 2016.

The outlook for 2017, however, remains bleak, and, according to official estimates, the state needs to find at least $175.6 million, either in new revenues or spending cuts, to avoid red ink in fiscal year 2017.

The state faced an even larger budget hole during the 2015 session, a shortfall that many blamed on the massive income tax cuts that Brownback and Republican leaders pushed through in 2012 and 2013. Lawmakers responded last year with big increases in state sales and cigarette taxes to cover the shortfall. But Brownback has stated publicly that he does not want another tax debate this year, and Lawrence-area legislators said it’s unlikely that one will happen.

“Most of the people who voted for the largest tax increase in state history don’t want one either,” said Sen. Tom Holland, of Baldwin City, the ranking Democrat on the Senate tax committee. “It just brings the issue back up again.”

Those tax policies had no support within the Douglas County delegation when they were passed, and local legislators continue to be harshly critical of them today.

Rep. Barbara Ballard of Lawrence, ranking Democrat on the Social Services Budget Committee, said she worries that the revenue shortfall will lead to harmful spending cuts.

“You’re going to have to go to parts of the budget that have most money, and that’s education and social services,” she said. “After that, we really don’t have money in too many other places. And of course they’ve just tapped transportation so often that it truly has become that bank of KDOT. Regardless of what we think, we always end up going back there, so I would think they’re going to hit that again too … and at some point I think that can’t hold true because you’re going to run out of needed funds there.”

Medicaid expansion

In 2015 there were several attempts to force a vote on measures to expand Medicaid as allowed under the Affordable Care Act, a move that would extend health coverage to an estimated 185,000 uninsured Kansans, but GOP leaders in the House blocked any votes from happening in the full chamber.

The one committee that actually advanced a bill was the House Vision 2020 Committee, chaired at that time by Sloan. But after the session, House Speaker Ray Merrick, of Stilwell, removed Sloan as chairman of that committee, a move Sloan says was in retaliation for the Medicaid expansion bill, and he thinks GOP leaders will continue to block any votes in 2016.

“I know the (Kansas) Hospital Association is making a stronger push. I think they’re too late,” Sloan said. “Unless the governor is going to present something, or say ‘I will sign this bill,’ whether it’s the one that came out of my committee or something else, the only way we get a debate is if we can find some bill that a Democrat or a House moderate (Republican) could go down and do an amendment on. But the speaker is pretty careful about making sure none of those show up.”

Some observers think there may be more opportunity in the Senate this year, especially after the closure in October of a community hospital in Independence, home town of Senate Vice President Jeff King.

Sen. Marci Francisco, D-Lawrence, who serves on the Senate Ways and Means Committee, said she is cautiously optimistic there can at least be a debate on the issue.

“It’s always possible to have a discussion on the floor, and I know they’ve been careful about even what legislation is discussed to see whether or not there can be an amendment,” she said. “But we are going to have to be discussing budget proposals this year, and the Medicaid expansion is certainly part of any budget discussion.”

School finance formula

Another major act of the 2015 Legislature was to repeal the per-pupil based school finance formula that had been in place since 1992 and replace it for two years with a system of block grants to school districts, giving lawmakers that much time to develop a new formula.

The block grants are in place for the current academic year, and for the 2016-2017 term. That means there is no immediate need to pass a new formula this year, although some think that would be preferable so the formula will be in place in the 2017 session when lawmakers have to adopt the next two-year budget.

“Do we really want to be trying to discuss the formula in the same year we’re trying to set the budget for it,” Francisco asked. “I don’t think it makes sense, and I don’t think the block grant is a reasonable interim solution and I certainly don’t want to see it extended.”

Lurking in the background of that issue, however, is a constitutional lawsuit pending before the Kansas Supreme Court. In early 2016, the court is expected to rule on one portion of the case, challenging whether the block grant system treats poor school districts equitably. And later in the spring, the court will hear oral arguments on the much larger questions of whether the block grant system is constitutional, and whether the overall amount of money being put into the system is sufficient to meet the Kansas Constitution’s requirement for “suitable” funding.

Rep. Boog Highberger, D-Lawrence, said he doesn’t think lawmakers will try to tackle such a thorny issue in 2016.

“Someone who’s been around the Statehouse longer than me might have a better guess, but I think they’ll just let it go because it’s an election year,” he said.

Court funding

Highberger, who serves on the House Judiciary Committee, said one issue lawmakers will have to deal with in 2016 is funding for the judicial branch.

In 2015, lawmakers passed a two-year budget for the judiciary, but inserted a provision that if the courts overturned a 2014 law scaling back the Supreme Court’s administrative authority over lower courts, that funding would become null and void. In September, a lower court did just that, and on Dec. 23, the Kansas Supreme Court unanimously upheld that decision.

Meanwhile, another lower court judge blocked enforcement of the law stripping the courts of funding, giving lawmakers until March 15 to address the issue.

“The stay the other court has given gives us time to fix the bad law that we made,” he said. “I hope the Legislature comes to its senses and doesn’t provoke a constitutional crisis.

Pet projects

Despite their pessimism that the Legislature will tackle very many of the big issues, most area lawmakers said they plan to work on a number of pet projects of their own.

Holland said he has a number of what he calls “good government” bills that he plans to push in 2016.

“Things like taking us to 60-day (instead of 90-day) paid legislative sessions, both years of the term,” he said. “We spend way too much time in Topeka.”

He also said he will introduce a bill barring the private insurance companies that manage KanCare, the state’s privatized Medicaid system, from making campaign contributions to members of the KanCare Oversight Committee.

Ballard said she plans to introduce a bill to permanently extend to colleges and universities an exemption from having to allow concealed-carry handguns on campuses.

Francisco said she’ll introduce a bill to amend the Kansas Open Meetings Act to require governing bodies to give a more detailed explanation of the issues they discuss when going into executive session.

And Highberger said one of his pet projects of the year will be a bill that would allow local governments to make small loans to residents to help them buy or install energy-efficiency improvements to their homes.