From the Alvin and Rosalie Sara Check studio PBS Kansas Presents Kansas Week, a multimillion dollar pitch to fix aging schools.

Wichita voters get their first look at a new bond proposal.

Plus, the Wichita Police Department is getting a high tech upgrade.

But not everyone is on board with the price tag for a new robotic dog.

But first, Kansas Governor Laura Kelly flexes her veto pen, sparking outrage over a property tax relief plan.

That's what we're talking about right now on Kansas Week.

Welcome to Kansas week.

I'm Jared Serrano.

It is a massive showdown at the state House as lawmakers work overtime to override dozens of vetoes issued by Governor Laura Kelly, while a separate push for property tax relief hits a roadblock.

Armed with a Republican supermajority, the House and Senate spent Thursday overturning the governor's decisions, successfully overriding 14 out of 16 bills discussed so far.

They also overrode several budget line items, including one that would have defunded the legislature's operating budget, which Republican Representative Nick Hodges called a borderline constitutional crisis.

But one of the biggest fights remains over property taxes.

The governor, Kelly, recently vetoed a relief bill that would have allowed voters to protest and block local governments from increasing property tax revenues by more than 3%.

She instead proposed her own plan featuring a vehicle tax credit, and argued that the Republican bill caused financial panic for local projects.

Meanwhile, a separate measure to put property tax relief directly on the November ballot hit a wall Thursday evening.

The House failed to secure a two thirds majority for a constitutional amendment that would have capped property tax valuations.

Democratic representative Tom Sawyer argued that artificial caps would only create an unfair system, and could raise vehicle taxes altogether.

Here to talk about this and some of the week's other big news is Sedgwick County Commissioner Jim Howell.

Former Wichita mayor and state legislator Brandon Whipple.

Local community organizer Faith Martin and Wichita Eagle opinion editor Diane Leffler.

Jim Howell, I'll start with you, former lawman.

Both of you are former state legislators.

I guess you're now a Sedgwick County commissioner.

With this property tax issue.

Are you in?

Tell me your thoughts on this.

Are you in favor of what's going what the Republicans have been trying to do?

Well, you know, I know there is an awful lot of opposition to, rising property taxes.

And it seems to be the most talked about topic in Topeka these days.

I would say that all governments aren't the same.

Some governments may be more wasteful or have things are doing that can be could be reined back in.

Other governments, I think are doing a better job on these these these ideas in Topeka are broad brush solutions.

I don't know that everybody has the same problem.

And I know there's been a lot of attention on, on, big government, you know, being very, very wasteful.

But I can tell you I have the data about Sedgwick County.

I'm very impressed.

If you if I sat down and showed you the data, you you would probably probably conclude.

I know if you've seen this, there is a lot of efficiency we've gained in the last 10 or 15 years.

And I don't think there's a lot of opportunities for us to really cut.

If we're going to cut taxes means we have to cut services and people are not willing to give up their services.

And so it is a bit, unfortunate.

There's a disconnect between the idea of taxes and services.

They don't seem to understand that they believe the system is inherently unfair, which is why this assessment cap has come into place.

And I have the data to prove this.

I know that Dave probably doesn't believe me, and neither does.

Neither does Karen Tyson, but I have the data to prove this that actually raises property taxes on about 50%, maybe a little bit more.

50% of property owners actually have a tax increase compared to the status quo.

And second thing that actually drives us away from the constitutional assessment, our assessment rates, those are two major problems with those bills, and I don't think that's the right answer.

The spending cap that we're talking about today, which is now House Bill 2043, actually is a better bill because it focuses on the issue of spending.

We don't actually don't have a problem with this bill.

We had a problem with the idea.

It didn't it didn't allow us to do bonding.

But that's been essentially fixed in this bill.

So I think they're going to vote on this this afternoon and we shall see what happens.

Faith Martin, do you agree?

Disagree.

Well, I think that I do agree with Jim that the county is pretty lean.

I think that there's a few places that he's well aware that I don't agree.

There's a, one and a half mills that's going to issue a 13 million, I think I'd love to see City of Wichita and Sedgwick County work something out so that, property tax dollars can be spent on domestic violence shelters versus WSU.

That's an interesting topic that we might get into.

Dion Lefler, let me go over to you.

What are your thoughts here?

Well, I have advocated for a long time to just tear this whole system up and start over because it really doesn't work.

Every year we get the same arguments in the same places by the same people, and what we really need in this state is a Kansas version of California's Proposition 13, where your taxes based on the value of your home when you buy it, and then it goes up a little bit each year.

And it it brought predictability.

And, and really kept people in their homes who would have otherwise lost them when California real estate.

What's gone.

It goes up a little bit each year based on what, inflation or not.

It.

I can't remember what it was 1 or 2% a year, but it's a flat rate that it can rise each year.

So you can sit down, you can calculate and know in 20 in, in, in, in in the year 3000 my property tax is going to be this.

Yeah okay.

And it brought predictability.

It brought stability.

And and they seem to be doing okay.

And Brandon Whipple you bring an interesting site to this as well.

And does this give what if this passes.

Would this give more power back to voters?

Voters have been saying loud and clear over the last couple of years, we need reforms, right?

Doesn't do that.

So every day I drop off my kids at our school and I talk with parents and they talk to me about these type of issues because they recognize me from being in office.

And property tax is one of the top things that people are concerned about.

I'm a little worried, with the health of our legislature, because both sides went in promising property tax relief.

And at the last minute, they're trying to excuse me.

They're trying to push through something that, frankly, the last version of it was, could have been a bit of a bomb for for the local government.

I think that if we want to pressure local government to do something about property taxes, the easiest fix right now would be to collaborate with the state when it comes to, property tax rebates, on our, on our taxes, each, each, each year we file.

So the city of Wichita, when I was mayor, we actually put aside an account which if you qualify for one of these property tax rebates, if you're a disabled veteran, if you're a low income single mom, basically, if you meet these criteria, you would get money back from the state.

And then you could show us that at the city level, and we would give you the rest of your property tax money back.

Now, there's a way we can streamline that by actually having the city of Wichita or any city, work with the state where they could actually give a targeted approach at first, which would be property tax money back to the people who really need it, and then see if we can expand out from there.

And I actually think that something like that would cause a lot less, unintended consequences than, let's say, a constitutional amendment.

Jim.

Hell, you know what, I disagree.

I think, you know, taxes ought to be tax policy should be simple.

It should be, broad based, low rate tax policy, I think a flatter a flatter the federal government for years.

It's never going to get simple.

The flat it the forest policy is what I support.

And I think the end of the day to Diane's point here, I think assessments people feel like assessments drive tax dollars.

And again, that's a it's a no no offense to you my friend, but there's a basic misunderstanding there.

We set the budget.

What the assessment was used for is for us to figure out what what is a what's the a right apportionment of that tax burden to every property tax owner or since every property owner, it's a way to apportion the tax levy out.

It's always used for if we need more dollars, we'll pass a bigger budget.

Again, to the extent that we have limitations in Topeka, they're going to set up on this House bill 2043.

But the reality is spending cap is getting to the heart of the matter.

Spending has always been the problem.

The focus on assessments, in my opinion, is misguided because it assumes that assessments drive tax dollars and it doesn't, except for schools.

A 20 mil for schools is essentially assessment driven.

Yeah.

Go ahead.

And I just want to add this, to this point as well.

Sometimes the taxpayers want us to take on big issue items like stopping domestic violence.

So if you are only going for a tax, lid, basically you're saying we're going to freeze the budget and our priorities where they're at right now, which makes it very hard, when issues come up, such as the fentanyl crisis that came up, halfway through my, my, time as mayor, we had Arpa funding to help with it.

And we had great nonprofits, that were able to use, also, you know, domestic violence is a big issue, particularly if we go back to Covid.

That was one of the top stabbing killers of, of women, was domestic violence situations.

So and then we also have economic development issues, like if you cap spending today and you freeze that, it makes it very hard for the voters, to be able to change your priorities, in the future.

And so I think that if we want to cut taxes, we can cut taxes and make it purposeful, make it targeted, make it make sense, while also making sure that we have the flexibility to respond to crisis and more importantly, to respond to the voters.

All right.

Either either of you think before this.

Now, this bill changed today, I believe, yesterday the bill had passed in the House, 63 to 59.

Property tax relief bill in the House, 63 to 59 and 22 to 18 in the Senate.

That may have changed now, but it doesn't look like there's enough support to override the governor's veto here.

So what do you think it'll stand for either of you?

I don't think it'll sting.

You don't think it'll stand okay.

Yeah.

And one thing that concerns me in the bill, and I believe it's in the current, stop me if I'm wrong here.

Jim, I know you've been watching this very closely, but, is this protest, is this protest, provision where 10% of the red, you know, 10% of the people who voted in an election?

Yep.

Can basically wipe out it can wipe out the, you know, the you know, it can just I know we got to go here.

Why that a little bit for it.

Yeah.

So you know what's called a revenue neutral rate notice.

And what you can do is you can flip this over on the back is going to be a provision for the, the, the voter to sign a protest for which jurisdiction you want to protest over.

I think the nine jurisdictions everybody has different.

We have about 120 taxing jurisdictions in Sedgwick County.

So in faith, you might say, I don't want I want to protest the city and you want to protest the county.

You want to.

It's complex and then you might have five adult voters in this household, and you have, owner of this property who lives out of state.

That's revenue neutral, right?

Notice.

Does he even live here?

Or he has ten rentals in the state, shorthand for trying to figure out how you how you actually figure out whether the thresholds been met in the precincts and even lined up with city limits.

I mean, there's a lot of complexity to this, and they have seven days to figure out, you know, for Sedgwick, going to be over 30,000, on the 10% of the of the registered voters, we made about 30,000 potential voters would have to sign a petition.

You have to verify the signature of every single one.

It's complex and the complexity is out of this world, so it's just unworkable.

I don't know what they're going to do with this and stuff cost.

Oh yeah.

Right.

The governor we've been talking about vetoes, but the governor is also clearing her desk by signing dozens of new bills into law, including a major push to lure the Kansas City Chiefs across the state line.

The new law expands the state's star bond program to help finance a new NFL stadium in Kansas.

Kelly also signed Caleb's Law, which enhances criminal penalties for predators who target minors in online sextortion schemes in preparation for this summer's FIFA World Cup.

A new measure would allow local communities to opt in to selling alcohol 23 hours a day.

Other notable laws now on the books include a digital Right to Repair act for electronics, new mandates for schools to stop naloxone to combat fentanyl overdoses, and faster legal processes to remove squatters from private property.

Faith Martin, you bring a libertarian know we talked about a lot of bills here, but you bring a libertarian perspective that we don't often have on this show.

Tell me what your thoughts on some of these bills.

Well, actually, I agree with, some of Laura Kelly's vetoes and some of the bills that got passed.

What I don't agree with is when we, the 23 hours, for example.

Random amounts of time and random places.

As a libertarian, I would say, well, if the public wants to have alcohol sales 24 hours a day, if the free market and the liquor stores or grocery stores there's want to do it, why do we have to put so many barriers and so many parameters in place?

It seems like a law that didn't really need it seems like a little bit government overstepped a bit a bit.

And where did this come from?

I had never even heard of this.

This?

Why do we need to sell alcohol 23 hours a day?

Can't they be closed it after midnight or 11, whatever it is?

Well, that's the international audience.

Well, I, I, I have actually had the I, I've worked at a paper when we had the World Cup in Pasadena at the Rose Bowl and fortunately we had drinking 24 hours a day.

We hosted the we hosted the, party for the international press corps.

And I literally spent the whole night driving back and forth the liquor store.

And so, yeah, I mean, it's, you know, if if it's just for, you know, if it's just for, for that event, I mean, you know, most of those people aren't driving anyway.

So, yeah, we can kind of we can kind of let up a little bit.

Yeah.

Mayor, anything else you want to chime in here?

I'm just going to lay it out.

What we're seeing speaker right now is just the political background of what the campaign narrative is going to be from both sides.

Know, once we talked about liquor being sold to soccer fans for 23 hours, no.

One, none of the moms and dads I talk to you every single day in my district has brought that up.

We need to be focused on affordable childcare.

We need to be focused on affordable health care.

We need to be focused on creating actual jobs and careers right here in Wichita and in Kansas.

We need to be focused on the issues that are actually are serious issues that people are going through.

And 24 hours of drinking versus 23 hours of drinking.

Okay, fine.

But I really wish that the legislature focused, went back to what they originally said.

Yeah, I remember Dan Hawkins, our speaker, is standing up there dropping the word affordability as if you just got a poll, which he probably did, but he hasn't stuck to it.

And now we're talking about all this other, I would say, political noise.

While people are seriously suffering right now.

You know Jim how agree.

Well, I just say this that I think the bills that she's signing are popular.

I think they had good bipartisan by bipartisan support.

And so they're easy to sign.

Some of them we're going to celebrate.

There's going to be, you know you know ceremonial bill signing for some of these.

I just checked there's 27 bills that she's vetoed altogether.

So this is going to go on for a while longer.

If they think they've got the votes to to override this, they're going to stay and get as many over as they possibly can.

So this is not over yet.

A lot of these bills are vetoed or welfare bills.

They're a Women's Right to Know act, you know, abortion versus, pro-life, illegal immigrant rights, welfare.

This these are the things that cause conflict.

And I think these are bills that, you know, they may have supermajorities in both both parties.

They might override a lot of these, but I can see why she vetoed them.

I mean, this is a this is a controversial stuff.

One bill she vetoed, which I've been working on for three years.

It's House Bill 2329.

This is a juvenile justice bill is actually on a separate county platform.

I'm so proud of the legislature for overriding that veto.

This is a controversial bill.

And the fact that her Department of Corrections was opposed to this bill.

But if you know, you know, you'll wonder why we have juveniles in Sedgwick County shooting each other up with stolen guns and and what's going on?

Why is this, you know, exploding in Sedgwick County for the last ten years?

This traces it back to a rope to the very exact issue where we passed Senate Bill 367 back in 2016, and we actually lowered the standards for juvenile offenders.

There's almost no consequences for serious crimes.

And so this bill kind of resets that issue where it needs to be as a state.

So I'm I'm proud of the fact that we were able to override that veto.

It needed to happen.

I think we should talk about the Chiefs though.

Yeah.

I mean that's billions of dollars to move a football team 30 miles.

And, you know, I you know, it's funny because like, it's it's it's painted as this great.

You know, like, wow, this is going to be so great.

And it's like, well, you know, a lot of people I'm talking to are like, who cares?

I don't care.

Yeah.

You know, I mean, I'm here in the side of the border, the other side of the border.

What difference does it's a border.

It's still three hours away.

Yeah.

You know, but something that people do care about, though, when I look at, whether it's the Charlie Kirk or the abortion, we are actually legislating that we don't tell the truth.

And forcing people to believe lies.

I, I'm really upset about the two abortion bills, that got the veto overturned because they're mandating the doctors have to tell untruths and saying that pregnancy crisis centers provide medical care and they do not.

So I think that was really a disservice.

And it wasn't a win for life.

I think it was a win for government overreach.

All right.

After a previous defeat at the ballot box, leaders at the state's largest school district are now trying a new strategy to pay for major upgrades.

Wichita Public Schools pitching three different proposals this week, all carrying a $615 million price tag.

District officials say.

With the average building now more than 60 years old, major renovations and repairs are desperately needed.

Each plan features the exact same projects, like rebuilding several schools, overhauling air conditioning systems and preserving the city's six oldest high schools.

But this time around, the district is asking for public feedback on how to divide those costs across two separate ballot questions for the November election.

The school board is expected to vote on a final plan by June.

Diane, what do you think's going to happen here?

This is coming off of a sales tax vote from the Wichita City voters.

It was overwhelmingly rejected.

The school board is now going to ask for a major tax hike, even bigger than what they asked for last year.

What do you see happening here?

Well, I don't think this is the way to go about this.

It seems very confusing.

The, for voters, if you look at Valley Center, they put in a they had a big bond election and they lost and they poured it down, and then they came back and it was, it was passed.

So they didn't get everything that they wanted, but they got what they needed.

And, you know what it's like, how much more can we complicate this?

Yeah.

You know, it doesn't make any sense.

You know, I mean, the problem with the sales tax vote was it was too complicated, and it had too many things and too many variables and too many, you know, too many question marks.

You know, just give us a simple yes no ballot measure that says what you're going to do.

Yeah.

You know, I mean, you know, you know, overwhelmingly that's what I heard about the sales tax vote is I heard from so many people that would that would tell me, you know, if if I knew we were going to build a fire station here and a police station here, and we were going to dump $75 million into specific projects at century two, they might have voted for the sales tax.

Is this this seems just as confusing as well with the rules.

It.

I was in the room when they were talking about the sales tax.

But I do recall that there was an effort to itemize some of these.

Like do you want to support firefighters?

Would there like to, to actually lay it out so people I think could comprehend exactly what, where the money was going to go.

A little better, but I don't I'm not convinced this is all about dollars and cents.

I also think that trust in our elected officials is at an all time low.

Absolutely.

And I interpreted that last, election as not so much about money and needs and priorities, but also can we trust our electeds to actually spend this money?

Well, and it gets to the point where I think the very last commercial that I saw, and it was kind of wild to watch, was like, hey, Wichita, we hear you.

You can't trust your elected leaders.

So we're going to have a board of non-elected political appointees oversee everything.

And I remember kind of laughing like you are like, that was the gist of the message about like, that seems even worse.

I'm not sure where we're there.

So I think that moving forward, the school district not only has to really be concrete about what they're spending money on, because that buys a trust where you can tell, did you build the station that you said you were going to or not, or the new school in this case?

So I think that being more direct, less complex, is the way to move forward.

But a lot of that, too, like, relationships are like a bank account.

You got to put something in before you take something out.

And I think that some of our elected officials online, they're doing stuff, but that's not the same as showing up and listening to voters and earning that trust through, do that relationship building.

Yeah.

Faith Martin, we're talking about schools now.

Well, I think one thing that they did right was to try to break it up into a couple different things, because you're right, the last sell tax vote was so big, it was kind of like the constitutional amendments.

They're wordy.

People don't understand breaking up into smaller things and making it a yes no.

I think we'll give people the opportunity.

And there's a plan on there that I like.

Not gonna say what's one.

But, you know, if we're going to fund our schools, giving people that option and making it a little simpler, I think this one has a better chance.

Now, I'm not going to say whether it'll pass or not, but I think it has a definitely a better chance than the last school bond vote.

Jim, just say they're just getting ready.

They're just getting started.

Messaging out the details of this.

I have met with Kelly Belfield ability for about an hour the other day, one on one, and had a wonderful conversation.

He showed me the plan.

I went to East High School, a couple days ago, and I looked at the plan again.

As you already stated, Jared, the the three plans are what we're discussing as a community right now.

They're going to sell on one of those three plans and a break sees about 20 or so CIP projects, which are very defined, breaks them up into two lists.

There's like a high priority and a lower priority.

You want to pass higher priority.

That's great.

You can vote for that one.

And not everybody gets a second one if you want to.

If the first one doesn't pass, the second one is dead.

That's the way this is configured.

And I would just say this.

There's about 90 buildings in the district I don't live in.

I don't live in this district.

So it's really not my deal is about 5.5 mils, which do the math.

It's about $180 per year for about a $300,000 home.

There's a 5.5 mil bond issue that's expiring right now in 2028.

So what this would do is it would actually just dovetail in until the end of that one.

If we don't pass this, if they don't pass this, that 5.5 million goes that goes away.

This is it will extend that to about 20 more CIP projects, things like 20 million to fix East High School.

I'm not saying I don't have an opinion about whether this is a good thing or a bad thing.

I'll simply just say, every single building that this school district has, every one of them was built or remodeled or refurbished with a bond.

You don't build buildings without bonds.

Now, they're planning this for the November election in our in my right.

So turnout will be a lot higher, that's for sure.

We might get a better gauge of what voters really think rather than being such a small turnout.

So yeah.

Well, in the last time too, I mean, you know, the the last school bond was 52 to 48, as I recall.

It was defeated, 52 to 48.

And that did a lot better than the sales tax vote.

Oh, boy.

Which was 82 to 18, something like that.

So, you know, there's there's a there's a reservoir of goodwill for the schools.

Yeah.

The Wichita Police Department is getting a high tech upgrade, but only half of what they originally asked for, the city Council approving the purchase of a robotic dog known as spot, to assist the Swat and bomb squad units.

Police originally asked for two of the robots, but the council agreed to start with just one for roughly $330,000.

Police Chief Joe Sullivan said the technology is crucial for keeping police officers safe during dangerous standoffs, but some residents and council members expressed concerns about the price tag and a lack of clear policies for the new tech.

The council and WPD will reconvene in July to review the policy usage data and whether a second robot is actually needed.

Face, we were talking a little bit about this.

Topeka has apparently one of these bomb dog robot dogs of some sort.

Did did you ever find out how much Topeka paid?

I believe it was 5500.

So why is Wichita paying $340,000 for a robot dog?

I think, organizations, businesses that sell equipment to police departments have really, really good salespeople because the dog in Topeka has not as many capabilities, not as many packages that you can put on it.

So the one that, WPD was looking at, there's all these additional features and packages that they can put in it, but, you know, at the end of the day, I think, like Brandon said, there's a lot of people that don't trust that the dollars are being spent wisely.

And I said in my comments, I live in the neighborhood where station 15 got closed down.

That's important to me.

Yep.

Brandon Whipple did.

Did Michael Hazel's vote surprise you?

He didn't know about it before he voted for one.

Oh, yeah.

I mean, so again, I, I'm no longer in the room, but what you got to do in a situation like this, and.

Yeah, I do think that, Mike is a thoughtful, council member.

You have to make the case.

Does this make our police officer safer in our community?

Safer?

Like, is this a need?

And then also, you got to make that spending case where faith is brought up.

We have we have fire, stations that were closed for weeks because of deferred maintenance.

And then, of course, you got the, that issue when it comes to, the perception of, are we spending our money, in the best way at the city level?

I on 15 seconds.

Anything.

Dan.

Yeah.

Topeka's dog.

Looks like they got it on Teemu right?

Right.

Yeah.

It's it's.

Yeah, we had to look at I mean, they just use it for, like, you know, like a prop at recruiting events and stuff.

All right.

That's a wrap for this week.

Thank you.

So much to Jim Howell Brandon Whipple, Faith Martin and Dion Leffler for being here.

Thanks also to cake and CSN for sharing video with us.

You can email us to kcpt at our Kansas Week at kcpt.org.

I'm Jared Cirillo.

We'll see you next week.

You.

Know.