Members of the Lawrence delegation to the Kansas Legislature share their views of the 2016 session so far during a Chamber of Commerce breakfast Saturday.They include, from left, Rep. John Wilson, Sen. Marci Francisco, and Reps. Barbara Ballard, Tom Sloan and Boog Highberger.

There have been a few bright spots in the 2016 legislative session in Kansas, but for the most part it’s been frustrating, if not completely strange.

That was the assessment of all five Lawrence legislators who shared their views of the session to an audience of about two dozen people at a breakfast Saturday at Maceli’s hosted by The Chamber of Lawrence as part of the group’s Legislative Series.

Because the delegation is made up of four Democrats and one moderate Republican, it is frequently at odds with the conservative Republican leadership in both chambers, and the policies of Republican Gov. Sam Brownback.

“I know you all are wondering if the most important issues have been tackled, and we have allowed air guns in schools now, so that is taken care of,” said Rep. John Wilson, a Democrat.

He was referring to House Bill 2468, which passed the House Thursday and will be heard in a Senate committee on Tuesday. It would require schools to make their facilities available to organizations that conduct air gun training and competitions.

But Wilson said some legislation that he supports is making its way through the process, including water conservation measures and establishing a foster care oversight committee.

“As you have probably read in the media, there are some serious concerns about foster care in the state,” he said.

Sen. Marci Francisco said the most interesting legislation in the Senate so far has been the school finance bill that is meant to respond to a recent Kansas Supreme Court decision that struck down the current method of distributing certain kinds of state aid to school districts.

“It was interesting because they named it the Court Ordered Redistribution of District Funds Act,” she said.

That bill would provide more aid to the Lawrence school district that could only be used to lower the district’s mill levy. But it would also reduce the district’s overall spending authority by nearly $825,000.

Rep. Boog Highberger said that for him, the theme of the session so far has been about taking away local control.

Besides the bill requiring schools to allow BB gun clubs, he noted other bills that would mandate “opt-in” policies for sex education in schools, a recent bill that prohibits cities from regulating nutritional content of food sold in retail outlets, and a bill that the House is scheduled to debate this week that specifically targets Lawrence by prohibiting cities from enacting “inclusionary zoning laws to promote mixed-income neighborhoods.”

“We hear a lot over there about how the tyrannical federal government is taking our freedom away, but we turn around and do exactly the same thing to our local units of government,” Highberger said.

But he also noted progress on bills that he has worked on in the Corrections and Juvenile Justice Committee to overhaul the state’s juvenile justice code. Different versions of that bill have passed both chambers of the Legislature, and they will next be negotiated in a conference committee.

Rep. Tom Sloan, the only Republican in the Lawrence delegation, said he has been disappointed with the session so far.

“Things have not been going well for the good guys,” he said. “I think that this whole session has been set up to help folks get re-elected who support the governor’s tax policies, and the shrinking of government and, from my perspective, the abdication of responsibilities the government has.”

Sloan said he believes the most important legislation that has passed so far is the budget, which contains a proviso that says if the state’s projected ending balance falls below $100 million, the governor has the option of making targeted spending cuts after legislators go home.

“So legislators are not having to vote on budget reductions to match the revenue that’s not showing up, but they’re going to allow the governor to make those cuts,” he said. “The governor’s not going to run for re-election. This shields a lot of legislators from irate voters.”

Many of the questions and comments for the lawmakers came from other local elected officials, including Lawrence school board member Shannon Kimball, who talked about why school officials from Lawrence and elsewhere did not show up to testify in hearings on school finance bills.

Senate Ways and Means chairman Ty Masterson, R-Andover, noted last week that he was surprised by the apparent lack of interest in the bills.

“They’re complaining about us not being there to give them input, but we have very little notice,” she said. “By the time we know what’s on the calendar and when it’s going to be heard, a lot of times the deadlines have passed already for us to provide testimony. If we’re going to provide input as a board … it takes more than 24 hours to coordinate that because we have to have a public meeting in order to have an official position.”

Douglas County Commissioner Mike Gaughan asked about the proposed sale of the state’s interests in the Kansas Bioscience Authority and what the Legislature’s vision is for the future of the Kansas economy.

“The guiding principle has been, Kansans know better how to spend their money than the government, and we should put more money in the pockets of Kansans,” Wilson said. “But that’s the extent of their vision for what the future of economic growth looks like in Kansas.”

“But it was also $35 million that we were putting into it, and we were looking for money,” said Rep. Barbara Ballard. “And then they got ticked off with part of the leadership, and as a result of that it became very convenient to start to eliminate some of the things.”

Lawmakers will begin the final week of the 2016 regular session on Monday. They will return in late April for a wrapup session to finalize the state budget in line with updated revenue estimates that will be released in mid-April.