From the Alvin and Rosalie Sara Check studio PBS Kansas Presents Kansas Week the battle over big tech expansion Kansas why rural residents are pushing back against a massive new Google data center.

While neighboring counties hit pause on development, plus, Governor Laura Kelly makes her latest moves vetoing sports tourism grants while letting a controversial nursing bill become law without her signature.

But first, a chaotic end to the legislative session leaves the fate of property tax relief hanging in the balance.

A bit bitter infighting at the Capitol.

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

Me and welcome to Kansas week I'm Anthony Powell sitting in for Jared Cirillo.

Well it was a chaotic end to the 2026 legislative session before adjourning for the year in an effort to curb rising property taxes, lawmakers passed a last minute bill to allow voters to petition and block local spending increases above 3%.

Hoping to dodge another veto, Republicans exempted school districts from this latest version, but the compromise left Republican Senate President Tim Masterson frustrated after he failed to secure his top priority, a constitutional amendment that would have strictly capped property valuations.

Masterson is now blaming House Republicans for taking that amendment, while gubernatorial rivals accuse the supermajority of failing to deliver on their campaign promises because lawmakers have already gone home.

That left Governor Kelly with the ability to veto the legislation without any chance of an override.

And here to discuss this and some of the week's other news is Wichita Eagle opinion editor Diane Leffler.

State representative Pat Proctor and Sedgwick County Commissioner Pete Meisner.

Pat, I'll start with you.

What is going on, would you say, with this Republican infighting, some heated confrontations with Adam Smith and Ty Masterson as well?

First of all, I'll say I voted for, the Senate's plan for constitutional amendment.

Go on record.

Yeah.

You know, Leavenworth is number one in the state for fastest rising property taxes.

So I'm pretty proud of that.

And so anything I can do to relieve it for my constituents, I'm going to try to do.

But, you know, we had kind of competing, philosophies.

The Senate wanted to work on the valuations.

Where is the House believe that valuations was only half the equation that didn't prevent local governments from raising mill levy.

So, our solution was a cap on budgets.

And, both, you know, both of them, failed to reach the, two thirds majority that would, allow for a veto override or for a constitutional amendment to be on the ballot.

And so, we're kind of back where we started.

I'm afraid if the governor doesn't sign this bill.

Right.

And that deadline for her.

Yeah.

So, yeah.

So, the middle of next week, she has to either veto it or let it become law without her signature or sign it.

I frankly expect that she'll veto it.

Her excuse last time, as she said, that 10% of voters being able to sign a petition to override the local governments was the tyranny of the minority.

And I would just say that, you know, our school, our school, boards and our local governments are frequently elected with electorates in the teens, a voter turnout.

So, you know, which one is tyranny of the minority?

I think that giving giving citizens a voice is the best way to bring accountability back to our property tax system.

And of course, low taxes are a reason that Kansas is such an appealing place for people to live.

I'm from Los Angeles.

When I show people, back there what I pay in property taxes here, it's like deer in the headlights.

Yeah, but then.

But then Nevada doesn't have an income tax, at least for a lot of segments of the population.

And so I think, I think that, we're we are not a low tax, state, in Leavenworth, it's driving people out of my district.

They can live right across River, Missouri and pay less property taxes.

We've got a similar problem here in south central Kansas where people are moving to Oklahoma.

We've got to do something about this problem because it's driving people out of their homes.

A lot of Kansans are hurting, and they're looking for any way to save some money.

Peter, are you satisfied with what Republicans did?

In discussing this issue, is that a yes no question.

It can be whatever you want.

Well, you know, the, the 3%, spending lid is fairly comfortable.

Sedgwick County, government is comfortable with it because the last three years we've only been capturing about 3 or 4% of the nine or 10 or 11 that we could have.

So personally, for Sedgwick County, we've been one of the few governments that have only captured what we need to fund government, and then the rest results in a mill levy decrease.

So that portion doesn't scare us.

The the 10% is debatable as as Pat says.

Not I'm not sure it even, would even survive a lawsuit if such, but, but and I but I the other local governments and all that the the well the school districts are exempt.

So yeah, this is a bill that addressed about half of your property tax because most property taxes statements, the school districts are over half of it.

So really this bill only addresses less less than half of your.

So had I wasn't aware of that.

A lot of Kansans are moving to Oklahoma to escape that.

Yeah.

You know our our state is it's stagnant population growth.

And if you took out Johnson County, we would actually be a negative population growth and and Leavenworth hemorrhaging, hemorrhaging people.

And it's because of the property taxes driving people out of the state.

And I agree, with Pete, I mean, we had the opportunity to really do something by including the schools, but we just could not come to a come to a settlement that all of the legislature legislators would, you know, be willing to override the veto.

And, of course, the Democrats are never with us when we're going to lower taxes, especially school revenues.

And so, I'm disappointed that schools were included because schools, frankly, are the worst offender.

Right.

Okay.

So we'll be watching.

What about maybe Wednesday, April 26th?

I think I believe Wednesday is her her deadline to either sign, sign, veto or let it become law.

And I would just urge her, you know, please do something to provide some property tax relief.

We've given her a plan.

Get it will address at least half of the property tax bill.

I hope that she'll sign it.

Okay, Diane, we'll go over to you.

What?

In your opinion, it's going to be the solution to the skyrocketing property valuations.

Well, you know, the funny thing is, is, you know, you're from L.A.. I was from L.A.. Oh, really?

Yeah.

And, in L.A., we had proposition 13.

Yeah, I remember it well, 1978.

Yeah.

And proposition 13, it basically capped your it capped your, property valuation.

That what you paid for your property, plus a very small accelerator each year.

So you could sit down, you could figure out what my property tax is going to be in the year 3500.

And yes, they yes, the property tax bills are higher, but their houses are worth ten times what ours are.

Yeah.

You know, so I was really surprised when I came here, because out there I had, I was paying on a, on a house that I bought for about $144,000.

And, I came here and bought a house for 105,000, and the property tax was higher.

And, so, yeah, that always had me scratching my head.

I have a memory of our teachers.

I was in junior high school at the time, pleading with us to tell our parents to vote against prop 13 because they thought it would damage the schools so severely.

So yeah, but they got through it.

Yeah.

You know, I mean, you know, when you sell a property, though, it resets when you sell the property, it resets.

But if the person can afford the property, if they can afford to buy the property for the incredible prices that they're selling at, then they can probably afford the property tax as well.

Right.

And you and you went in with eyes full open knowing that, okay, this is this is what I'm spending for my house and this is what I'm paying for my property tax.

And if that pencil out for you, well and good, if it doesn't, don't buy the house.

Yeah.

All right.

Well, we're going to move on now to a controversial bill aimed at easing the state's nursing shortage.

It's now a law.

But it happened without Governor Laura Kelly.

Signature.

The new measure lowers the academic requirements for college nursing instructors.

It prevents the state nursing board from requiring educators to hold the degree more than one level above it, their credentials their students are seeking.

Republican supporters argue the change will help schools hire more staff, open up admissions and graduate more nurses to combat ongoing workforce shortages.

But Governor Kelly expressed deep concerns, warning that lowering educational standards for instructors might leave future nurses unprepared to handle medical emergencies and ultimately compromise patient care.

Pat, if you don't mind sharing with us, how did you vote for this and why I voted for this?

So when I'm not in the legislature, I teach here in Wichita at Wichita State University, and I've got a graduate teaching assistant who has the degree that she's teaching the students in our classes to achieve.

So this standard is higher than the standard in a university for for teaching a class.

And so I was a little confounded by the governor's objections to it that it was going to lower standards.

And so I really voted for it because we have a health care crisis here in the state, especially out west, in the rural, in the, you know, rural counties where we're losing hospitals and we're losing health care facilities.

And this is a great way to address it and get more, more nurses out there in the streets, taking care of Kansans can never have enough nurses.

Right?

Hey, man.

Yeah.

Pete.

How is this, how severe of rather is the shortage of nurses and instructors in Sedgwick County.

Would you assess?

Well, there's been a pretty good focus on the medical industry.

We're building the biomed center with Wichita State and Q right.

It's going to be 3000 students in that at the end of next year.

But I would say, yeah, I didn't.

I was going to be troubled weighing in.

But then I recalled during Covid, the incredible pressure on nurses mainly and doctors, but nurses were the often they were the last person holding the hand or seeing the victim.

The the family was out in the window trying to wave.

So that was a lot of stress on nurses.

We lost a lot of nurses that and and Pat makes a good point.

The rural, medical industry is struggling.

Wichita.

I think we're in the Sage County.

We're fortunate.

I think we've got a puzzlement because nursing is kind of a calling.

And and so, I think I'm supportive of, of how do we get these nurses more qualified, education wide sooner than later?

I'm on the board at issue tech, and our and our nursing program at WSU tech is really going way up in enrollment.

So there's an interest there.

And I hope it all works out to the benefit.

You know, with all its talk about AI replacing jobs, nursing is one thing that you can't you can't replace a nurse.

They play such a critical role in so many different capacities.

So, I guess what you're saying is we better do everything we can to attract as many nurses.

Okay.

Diane, I'll ask you, in your opinion, did the Republican legislature do the right thing and lowering the standards, for nursing instructors?

Actually, I have a I have a guest column in the paper today, that was dealing with the subject.

And the problem is not necessarily that, the qualifications of the instructors.

It's the pay.

Yeah.

Because you make less money.

You make less money as a nursing instructor than you do as a nurse nursing.

So it's pretty hard to find.

It's pretty hard to find instructors when they get paid 70,000 and and regular nurses are starting at like 78.

And as the more as you get up higher in the, in the chain of command of nurses that, you know, you can make, you know, 130, 140 hundred and $50,000.

So it's I remember it's more profitable to be, you know, it's more it's traveling.

Nurses make a lot of money, you know.

So so is there an instructor shortage as well?

Yeah.

That's, that's, that's what this bill was intended to, to address was it was a shortage of instructors, but the but but if you don't pay them better, you know, it's not going to work.

And I think kind of the intent is if you, if you lower the qualification to be the instructor and you keep the pay the same, now that person has competitive pay, whether they're working in the hospital or they're working as an instructor.

And I think that was kind of the logic of lowering the standard to get more people, you know, teaching because the pay is comparable to where they would be paid as opposed to the way it is now, where you have to have these highly qualified people that could make way more in the hospital, and they can make it the teaching environment.

That was sort of the logic, because it was explained to us on the floor so hard to have enough nurses when you don't have enough qualified instructors.

Absolutely.

All right.

We're going to move on.

Now, to our next topic, Kansas Governor Laura Kelly has struck down a bill aimed at boosting sports tourism across the state.

The bill would have created a matching grant program to help local communities pay for new or recurring sporting events.

Advocates for the measure argue the grants are necessary because many cities cannot afford to host big tournaments.

They claim that cost the state millions in potential revenue from out of town visitors.

Spending money on hotels, shopping and dining.

But in her veto message, Governor Kelly pointed out that Kansas already has a dedicated fund for attracting sports activities.

She says if lawmakers want to spend more money to local communities for sports attractions, they should just use a portion of that existing fund rather than creating an entirely new program.

So we will discuss this.

Pat, I will ask you what's wrong with Governor Kelly's position here?

Well, you know, I, I think what I heard from my fellow legislators, and I've seen it firsthand, you know, I'm all over the state now running statewide, and I see it all over the state.

All the money is going to a very small portion of the state in the Johnson County, Kansas City area.

You know, where we've spent, you know, billions of dollars or committed billions of dollars to bring in the chiefs out there.

You know, and all these smaller venues in the rural areas of the state are are not getting the same love.

And so this fund was intended to give those smaller communities the resources to also attract sporting events, tournaments, things like that, so that we could get economic development across the state, not just in the Kansas City area.

And, I'm disappointed that, that she took kind of a narrow view on it and said, hey, we're doing plenty in Johnson County in Topeka and, and, that area.

So, you know, the rest of the state's fine.

Yeah.

That area I having lived up to in Kansas City is, oh, attracts so much tourism, you know, over the years already.

So what you're saying is we got to level the playing field here.

Absolutely.

There are some great sports facilities.

All over the state of Zone Garden City.

Not too long ago, they just opened a great new, sport facility.

You know, there's rodeos all over the state that we could be, you know, bringing more people into.

But we don't have a dedicated fund for that.

And that's what this was supposed to address.

And I'm disappointed that, that it, didn't, you know, that she didn't sign it, right?

Pete, any thoughts on this?

Just it's funny that Johnson County.

Yes.

And in the last ten years, which.

Tyree, we've done a lot of work to compete for, be on that circuit that that travels used to travel.

Sports is huge.

Yeah.

And baseball going to Oklahoma and soccer.

And people used to drive from Oklahoma City through Wichita to get to Kansas City play soccer.

Well, now now with our complex, we're on the map for attracting youth.

All these tournaments volleyball, soccer, basketball.

And it's a whole industry of of it's a real industry that, that, you know, and if you've got kids that are sports during that season, you're out of town every weekend.

And so, I like yeah, I like what we're doing locally.

If the fund was probably to help match other parts of the state, I can totally understand that.

I think we're trying to.

We're surviving pretty good.

I mean, it's out here at 96 and.

And Greenwich Road every weekend.

It's.

And the restaurants are packed.

So in bring you you're staying here.

Yeah.

Vegas.

Amazing.

That was true too.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Diane.

In your opinion, what's the what might be the solution here to help level the playing field?

Well, I was kind of confused by this bill from the beginning.

It just, you know, for one thing, I was there when they passed the, when when they when they decided to take the money from sports gambling and use it to attract professional teams to the state of Kansas.

And it's like it's a really small amount of money compared to what we're actually doing in terms of, you know, bringing the chiefs here.

I mean, it's it's it's it's a drop and it's a drop in the ocean.

And you know, so I just, you know, I didn't really understand this.

I mean, you know, there was this I don't understand the governor's veto message, because that fund was specifically for bringing professional sports.

And so it's it just doesn't it doesn't make sense to me.

Yeah, that professional sports would be excluded from the bill, which it is, and that, and that the governor would cite that fund as being the, as being the source of money, you know, to pay for, you know, these little tournaments out in, in rural places.

So, you know, and the other the other question I had was, you know, if you have to are you really bring in economic development, if you have to subsidize this with taxpayer money, you know, or, you know, I mean, the whole idea is that, you know, you get these sports things to come and it's supposed to be, you know, it's supposed to you know, profit the the local communities, local governments.

And it's like, you know, so, you know, we have to spend taxpayer money to attract them.

And then hope that they pay tax, you know, hope they pay taxes while they're here.

And I like I say, I just confused by this bill the whole way.

Okay.

We'll leave it there and move on.

Now to a proposed Google data center in rural Barbour County is drawing fire as the statewide debate over big tech facilities heats up.

Locals near Sharon are raising concerns over noise, water supply impacts and project secrecy, but say county leaders rejected their request for a temporary ban on development.

That is in stark contrast to Sedgwick County, where commissioners have enacted a moratorium until mid June.

Tech companies have already bought up land in the western part of the county, prompting residents to raise alarms over potential groundwater contamination and massive energy use.

Sedgwick County leaders are now holding roundtable discussions to draft stricter zoning regulations, joining Harvey, McPherson and Kingman counties, which have all adopted similar bans to slow down progress and protect rural land.

PMI, sir, we'll go to you first on this one with new data centers.

Be a benefit overall to Sedgwick County.

Well, yes they would.

It's a it's an industry that is evolving.

It's incredible the money that that I hear is something that that our, our, our state legislators advanced a bill to give them the sales tax exemption and that that opened the door.

And, I think we had like 19 centers in Kansas and our surrounding states have a lot more.

So we're although we're behind, we're better because the technology today and the data centers today are better than the ones 15 years ago, with all the that the the troubles you hear about water power, you know, noise, things like that, that it's way better today and I, I actually went out to Barbour County and, you know, Commissioner Blue Barn, I did.

We drove out there and saw their town hall with Google.

Was their stations and they were were very outreaching to the, to the citizens and and but in Sedgwick County, we are trying to gather.

No, we, we don't want to shut them out.

I don't think, I don't want to shut them out.

But I don't want to, red tape them to death where they're saying, well, hey, I'll go somewhere else, right?

They'll go right next.

We experience that with the casino.

We voted, did not have a casino in Sedgwick County, and it went ten yards on the on the outside border of the Sedgwick County.

They're here.

They're going to be here.

That's what I was going to say.

It reminds me of the, casino discussions, you know, several years ago.

Pat, it seems like, as Pete was saying, this is inevitable.

Yeah.

You've got these data centers popping up, and, doesn't seem like Kansas one would want to be left out.

Yeah, this is a fast moving industry, and I think that the speed has outstripped the arguments.

And I think a lot of people are just confused about the current state of the technology.

You know, the, the these data centers, they use a closed loop water system.

So it's not like they're just consuming water by the, you know, hundreds of thousands of gallons.

They collect water once and then they just keep circulating it.

A lot of these data centers now have their own energy generation and are actually contributing back to the grid, whatever they're not using for the data center.

And for those that do use the grid, Leo del Padang, from here in the area, he's the chairman of the Energy Committee, and he got some great legislation passed that requires them basically, and working with KCC requires them to pay more than market rate.

So they're paying more than their fair share to help supplement and subsidize building the grid to, to to, feed their infrastructure.

I think that we need to just calm down and have a conversation about the technologies that exist now, not as has existed a couple of years ago.

And hey, if they don't want it, we'll take it in Leavenworth because it's a great industry.

So, Diane, let me ask you, do you think this is a case where people are, you know, hearing from their friends, maybe in other states, horror stories about these centers and maybe aren't aware of how with Pete and Pat, we're seeing how they've evolved and might the benefits at this point far outweigh any negatives?

Well, the evolution of these things is rapid.

And, you know, frankly, you know, the state offered offered extensive tax incentives to these to come here.

Yeah.

And so it's like, you know, if you don't want data centers, don't vote for people who vote for bills, but give them tax breaks.

You know, I mean, you roll out the red carpet for them and then the locals are like, hey, you know, nobody asked us.

But the you know, I mean, we could be in a situation where by the time these tax incentives expire that the entire data center could fit in something the size of your cell phone.

You know, I mean, you know, that technology moves that rapidly.

And I look at where we were 20 years ago versus where we are today.

And, you know, if if something like that occurs, then the then the the then the data center as we know it, it's just going to be a giant tilt up building with no usefulness out in the middle of nowhere.

And it just, you know, I mean, and then the other part of it is, is that the, the real value in these things is not the building.

It's it's the stuff that's in the building and that's already tax exempt because thank you, Kathleen Sebelius.

And so it's just, you know, I mean I don't I don't know what we gain by it to get the tax breaks.

You have to pay to get the tax breaks.

You only have to provide 20 jobs.

20 jobs.

I do agree that the legislation has not kept up with the technology either.

I think that the the sales tax exemptions don't really make sense anymore because there's such a drive to put these data centers and they're coming with or without the tax break.

And so I would like the legislature to come back and relook to the sales tax exemption, because it made sense a couple years ago when this was a nascent industry.

But now it's exploded.

They're coming either way.

And I don't think we need the they need that tax break.

If I can add to that, that your argument is about hyperscale centers.

That's the big ones, right?

There's data centers.

Every school district has one.

This building right here is probably keeping their data to some level.

But privately.

And then there's some shared data centers that are there.

So, we're trying to help educate as well and inform, hey, if if you work at Boeing, Boeing has got a kind of a big data center, McConnell Air Force Base isn't going to tell you where theirs is at, but they got a giant one.

So some quote data centers are there.

The hyperscale is the conversation.

Right.

So it seems like a case where there's going to have to be a lot of public education about this because people, you know, sometimes people react without knowing, everything about what's involved.

Okay.

Thank you, gentlemen.

And that is a wrap for this week.

Thanks to Diane Leffler.

Pat Proctor and Pete Metzner for being here.

And thanks also to Keith and CSN for sharing video with us.

I'm Anthony Powell.

We'll see you back here next week.

Thanks.