Reps. Marvin Kleeb, R-Overland Park; Boog Highberger, D-Lawrence; Bill Sutton, R-Gardner; Jeff Pittman, R-Leavenworth; and Barbara Ballard, D-Lawrence, are sworn in to new terms in the Kansas House as the 2017 session gets underway Monday, Jan. 9, 2017.

Topeka ? The 2017 legislative session in Kansas officially got underway Monday with the swearing-in of all 165 legislators who now face the daunting challenge of closing a massive budget gap and crafting a new school finance formula that will satisfy the Kansas Supreme Court.

Despite those challenges, though, many lawmakers appeared to come in with a sense of cautious optimism that the changes produced by the 2016 elections will bring about more bipartisan cooperation than has been seen in the recent past.

“Every single person who ran to serve in 2017 knew the state was facing serious challenges and that this Legislature hasn’t enjoyed full admiration and support,” newly inaugurated House Speaker Ron Ryckman Jr., R-Olathe, said. “But we ran anyway. We each face the daunting responsibility of representing those in our districts who have entrusted us, yet we all face the duty of governing in the best interests of the state.”

Rep. Jim Ward, D-Wichita, who took over as leader of a minority caucus that gained 12 new seats in the elections, extended an olive branch to Republicans.

Kansas Chief Justice Lawton Nuss congratulates Rep. Ron Ryckman after swearing him in as Speaker of the Kansas House.

“To you, Speaker Ryckman, congratulations on achieving the high honor of speaker of this distinguished body,” he said. “The past month has allowed us to develop a good working relationship, and I anticipate building on this as we begin our difficult task.”

Budget crisis

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, and in both chambers, agreed Monday that the first order of business will be addressing the projected $340 million budget gap in the final half of the current fiscal year. That’s the difference between how much the state has budgeted to spend through July 1 and how much revenue it expects to take in.

Gov. Sam Brownback is expected to offer some details of his budget plan when he delivers his State of the State address Tuesday at 5 p.m. But the full details of that plan won’t be laid out until Wednesday in the form of a “rescission bill” that Brownback’s budget director, Shawn Sullivan, will present to a joint meeting of the House and Senate budget committees.

“We need to get to work on that right away because the longer the rescission bill takes, the less time people have to react to it,” said Sen. Jeff Longbine, R-Emporia, the new Senate vice president. “My hope would be that we can get a rescission bill passed through this chamber, maybe as soon as Feb. 1.”

As of Monday, however, Brownback had not shared any details of his plan with lawmakers, and few were even willing to speculate on what might be in it.

“It’s going to be ugly,” said Rep. Don Hineman, R-Dighton, the new House majority leader. “There are going to be things in it all of us hate, but we probably will do because we have very few options.”

Tax hikes likely

The next order of business, though, will be negotiating a tax package aimed at meeting the state’s long-term fiscal needs.

That’s because even if lawmakers were to cut $340 million in spending to balance this year’s budget, there is still a looming $583 million shortfall for the next fiscal year that begins July 1. And if lawmakers choose to close this year’s budget gap with one-time sources of money, that would only create a deeper hole for the following year.

The House Taxation Committee met Monday afternoon to get a general overview of the state’s revenue situation, but it seems to be a foregone conclusion that one of Brownback’s signature tax cuts from 2012 will be repealed, the so-called LLC exemption that removed state income taxes entirely for more than 330,000 farmers and business owners.

That, however, would only generate about $250 million a year for the state, far less than what is needed to bring structural balance back to the state budget without coupling it with significant spending cuts.

The question, then, is whether lawmakers will pass that bill quickly, allowing many newly elected members to fulfill a campaign pledge early in the session, or wait until later in the session in order to pass a single, comprehensive tax bill.

“That’s one of the conversations that the membership needs to have before we get too far down the road. What’s the best strategy and best approach to achieving what we all know we need to do,” Hineman said.

Some lawmakers fear that if they pass a bill to repeal the LLC exemption quickly, support will then die off for other, less popular tax initiatives that may be needed, such as raising income tax rates generally or reinstating a third tax bracket for upper-income Kansans.

“I’d personally rather see it as part of a broader package,” said Sen. Tom Holland, D-Baldwin City, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Assessments and Taxation Committee. “We have a significant financial disconnect between what the budget needs are and what our incoming revenues are, about $850 or $900 million.”

Judicial branch

Also being sworn in Monday were five Kansas Supreme Court justices and six Kansas Court of Appeals judges who were retained in last year’s elections, despite concerted efforts by conservative groups to reject several of them.

Relations have been tense between the judicial branch and the legislative and executive branches for several years, with much of it stemming from controversial court decisions on school finance and the death penalty, and the high-profile campaign to oust several judges and justices was seen as the climax of that tension.

Kansas Chief Justice Lawton Nuss says he is hoping for improved relations with the Kansas Legislature this year, including budget increases to improve salaries in the judicial branch.

Speaking during a rare news conference after the ceremony, Chief Justice Lawton Nuss said he believes the elections demonstrated strong public support for an independent judiciary.

“I took that vote to retain all 11 of us as a sign that Kansans want to maintain a strong judicial branch, a branch that’s equal to the executive and legislative branches, and they don’t want judges who are influenced by special interests or special groups, or are intimidated,” Nuss said. “They want their judges to make decisions fairly and impartially. In short, Kansans told us in November that they want to continue to live under the rule of law.”

One sign that the tensions might be easing between the court and the Legislature, though, is that Ryckman has invited Nuss to deliver his annual State of the Judiciary address from the House floor, something that used to be traditional, but which former House Speaker Ray Merrick, of Stilwell, did not allow for the past four years.

“I have been told that the House chamber will be made available for me to give my State of the Judiciary speech there if I so choose, and my plans now are to accept that offer and to give my speech there,” Nuss said.

But Nuss, who is also the chief administrator of the judicial branch, also hopes to get something else from the Legislature, more funding in order to fill vacant positions in courthouses throughout the state, and to enhance salaries for judges and their staffs who haven’t seen a pay raise in several years.

“Our judges have not had any increase in compensation since 2008, and our employees have had only one increase since that time, and that was about 2 percent several years ago and that was quickly eaten up by increased demands on them for higher KPERS contributions and also health care,” Nuss said.

“We took the time to have a very careful study done during this past year that showed our district judges, our trial judges in Kansas, are ranked 50th in the country in terms of compensation,” he said.