From the Alvin and Rosalie Sara Check studio PBS Kansas Presents Kansas Week.

Relief for working parents could soon be on the way.

Thanks to a rare moment of bipartisan agreement.

We will show you how a newly signed law aims to tackle the state's childcare crisis.

Plus, new mandates for student recess in high school civics exams are officially off the table.

We'll discuss why the governor is telling state lawmakers to stay out of the classroom.

But first, if you were hoping for major property tax relief this year, you are officially out of luck after another governor, Kelly veto.

That is what we are talking about right now on Kansas Week.

And hello, I'm Anthony Powell sitting in once again for Jared Cirillo.

The chance for a major property tax relief this year is officially dead.

Across Kansas, Governor Laura Kelly has vetoed a controversial bill that would have strictly capped how much cities and counties could increase their spending.

Now, because Kansas lawmakers already adjourned for the year, there is no chance for them to override her decision.

The governor argues the cap was a false promise that would hurt local governments, and blasted Republican leaders for ignoring her own proposals.

But House Speaker Dan Hawkins slammed the veto, saying property taxes have reached a crisis level and Kansans deserve the power to block local tax hikes at the ballot box.

All right.

Here to talk about this and some of the week's other state and local news is Democrat State Representative Tom Sawyer and Wichita Eagle opinion editor Dion Lefler.

Hello to you both.

Hope you're well.

Great to be here.

Tom, we'll start with you.

So, in your esteemed opinion, did the governor do the right thing here?

Actually, I was hoping she'd sign the bill.

The, you know, we worked out.

We worked with the, league municipalities and worked out their concerns in the bill for the most part.

There was no, you know, no bills.

A perfect opposition clause in the bill, particularly the protest petition.

I explained the bill a little bit so that people understand.

Please do it.

It would have allowed local governments to increase property taxes, but no more than three, up to the rate of inflation and capped at three.

Right.

So, you know, the idea is we have to live within our means.

They need to try to live within their means as well.

And and property taxes come from local governments.

And if we're going to control property taxes, we have to control local local spending.

Now, I would prefer the bill also would have closed an election option because it is a little quirky.

You know, it allows 10% of the voters to sign a petition.

And that would stop the, the increase if they wanted to go above 3% or above the cap.

I would prefer also election option or the that that if a city or county wanted to go above the cap, that they could just put it straight to a vote of the other people.

But yeah, my hope was we sign this bill, get this much done this year, then add the election piece next year, because property taxes are a big issue.

We have done some things at the state level that in the last few years, I don't know and definitely get a lot of credit for.

I mean, one of the governor's proposals, which I agree with, was increase in the homestead exemption from 75,150.

So right now in Kansas, homeowners don't pay the school the 20 mills that we levy for schools on the first $75,000 of their value.

She would increase the one fifth that we actually passed a bill out of House committee.

It would have raised from 75 to 100,000, but unfortunately it didn't get through the process.

But the fact that we, you know, Senate Bill one a couple of years ago.

So when we increase it, I'll put that homestead exemption in place at 75,000.

And everybody has a house.

We're sitting on a thousand or more, or it's paying $173.50 less in property taxes every year because of that piece.

So so that is something we have done.

The state itself only levy 2 million and a half for buildings.

The rest comes from schools and local governments.

And last year we eliminated that and a half.

And that's not a big savings.

It's usually about 30 bucks or so for most people.

But it was a savings we did.

But I think the most important thing we can do is target the relief to people who need it the most.

And we've had some success there.

You know, people always talk about we don't want to tax grandma out of her house.

So it's Senate Bill one.

A couple of years ago, we passed a senior freeze act so that seniors, once they get age 65, they make 58,400, unless less on a house worth 350,000 or less.

They never pay an increase in property taxes.

The state they get it.

They get any increase over their base year.

Once they turn 65 back from the state.

And a big change we made last year that just wouldn't effect this year is we no longer, have seniors count social Security in that $58,000, so a lot more will qualify.

So those are some good things the legislature has done for property tax relief.

And you were saying we were chatting before the show that it's kind of misleading when people say that Kansas has such high property taxes.

That's really relative.

You said other states in our region, like Nebraska are higher.

And while Oklahoma may have lower property taxes, they benefit greatly from the revenue from both oil and gas.

So it's it's relative here.

It is I mean, we people we need them, you know, again, property taxes fund, local services fund things like fire and police you know emergency EMS.

So, you know, we need those services.

There has to be a way to fund that.

So if you don't find it with property taxes, you you need to fund it somewhere else.

But we do.

You know, I believe when property taxes are high, we need to find ways to to move away from property taxes.

Keep them down.

But I on your thoughts.

I'm going to go with the governor on this one, because I think that that, provision that allows 10% of voters to, to basically freeze spending of local government is just, I thought that that was just a really bad idea.

I thought it was beyond the pale.

As we've talked before, I'm more of a supporter of the proposition 13 California concept, where, you know, where your property values are set the day you buy your house, and it doesn't go up or down from there.

And it has a couple of advantages.

One is you don't need all this, you know, there's less bureaucracy to handle assessing the properties.

They're already assessed.

And too.

I mean, there was a slight uptick, you know, that was allowed every year.

But the fact was, you know, I mean, if you could afford to buy the house, you can look at the property, you could look at your property value when you bought it and then say, okay, it's, you know, I could I could figure out to the year 3000 when what my what my tax would have been.

And, you know, I think that that's, I think that's a model that we should look at.

And I think it would solve a lot of problems.

It would definitely solve the problem of people getting taxed out of their homes.

But I'm not sure that that's actually happening in the state.

Everybody has said it to me.

I've asked them to, you know, please tell me who because I want to write that story.

And so far, I've had no takers.

It's such a delicate balance that especially with school districts in these small towns, that relies so heavily on tax revenue because their tax base just isn't what it is in metropolitan areas.

And actually, the bill that, House Bill 2043, the governor, vetoed, we exempted schools out of that.

So that cap doesn't apply to schools because they're under a different school formula.

You know, the state we if we did our if we fully funded special education, then the school levy would go down.

That would help.

But, you know, they're under a different form of the state funds part of it.

And what is it funded then?

The local schools have a chance to raise local property taxes to make up for it.

Okay.

Good discussion gentlemen.

We're going to move on.

Adding to her total of nearly 30 vetoes this year, Governor Laura Kelly is striking down a pair of education bills affecting students across Kansas.

The governor vetoed a measure that would have required 30 minutes of daily unstructured recess for elementary school students, and mandated physical fitness tests for grades one through 12.

Now, she also rejected a separate bill requiring high schoolers to pass an American civics exam before they could graduate.

Kelly says while she supports the concept, decisions about curriculum and daily schedules belong to the state Board of Education, not lawmakers.

Tom, where do you stand on these education bills?

I agree with the governor on this.

In Kansas, we essentially have four branches of government.

You know, we have a limited state board of education that is supposed to make these decisions.

I know it's frustrating, but the legislature each year seems that we it's more and more try to take over their job, which I don't get.

We are supposed to fund schools, but it's up to the state Board of Education to set a policy.

So you have a recess.

You know, I love the physical education test and stuff, but we got to leave it to the state school board and local school boards.

That's their job.

It's not ours.

So are they doing their job, though?

Are they stressing?

Because, you know, there's so much talk in this digital age we're on with kids on their devices, how important it is for recess and to be outside.

Be off your devices.

Do you think are they doing their job?

I think they are.

I mean, I have not heard people I know once complained to me that their kid didn't get enough recess.

Now, maybe it's happened somewhere, I don't know.

So, I mean, I think they are doing their job.

You know, again, legislature, we could certainly do our job a lot better.

And there's things that school board can do better.

But it's their job, not ours.

Yeah.

Diane, do you think the legislature should be stepping in on this?

Yeah.

I just want to say, Tom, you've never had a complaint that some of these kids didn't get enough recess.

I will, I will be that complaint.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

Our kids were just, you know, they.

I mean, I looked at what what it was when I went to school versus what it was when they went to school.

I mean, they were lucky if they got, you know, 10 or 20 minutes a day.

And, the other, you know, the other part of that, Okay.

Can I tell a story?

Sure.

Okay.

So the the physical fitness test.

I remember when when I took that back, when I was in junior high, and, so the last part of the test was we had to run a timed mile.

And, so, anyway, you know, running this mile on this course through the desert in Arizona and, so, so we started out running and we came upon this giant ant fight.

It was like a carpet of red and black ants, and they were just tearing each other apart.

So we stopped to watch that.

And our coach comes jogging out.

You know, when nobody comes, nobody crosses the finish line.

Our coach comes jogging out.

He's like, what's what's what's got?

What are you guys doing?

We're like, look at this, right?

He's like, whoa.

So then he stopped and watched it with us.

So we're run into a science class.

Yeah, we were all late for our next class, and so we all got detention.

But it was it was worth it.

And, you know, so we never got our presidential physical fitness medals.

What struck me was the civics exam.

Because you remember when Jay Leno would ask, go to your street and ask him the most basic questions, and people at deer in the headlights?

I mean, are these our kids these days getting enough civics?

You know, they're probably not that a lot of it is.

The kids are, you know, like in high school when they have electives that, you know, I took I was interested in civics and social studies.

I took a lot of those kind of classes, but a lot of kids don't.

But but again, it it's not our job to regulate those things.

It is the state locals, local elected state boards and the state board of education.

So I mean I greet kids should get recess.

They should definitely take the physical test.

But you know, it's not our job.

Yeah, they know best, right?

They know for they know what's right for the district.

They're they're the experts of that area.

You know, that's what their elected for and that's their job.

So we should let them do it.

Okay.

Well, we, can I sure can I, can I toss in on the, So that's the I think the problem with the civics bill was not necessarily that the people don't want kids to learn civics.

I think it was more of what they were kind of leaning toward that this would be instruction in, the evils of of communism and socialism, as defined by God only knows who.

So I was, yeah, I was a little bit suspicious of of of the motives and what would be taught in that.

So anyway, that's okay.

Well, while the governor has been busy with her veto pen lately, there is one major piece of legislation she just signed into law.

Governor Kelly has approved a new measure designed to tackle the state's ongoing child care shortage.

The bill provides a 75% tax credit to businesses that help cover childcare expenses for their workers, help expand local childcare programs, or even pay for a referral services to connect employees with providers.

Now, supporters say modernizing these tax credits makes it easier for employers to be part of the solution, ensuring parents are not forced to cut their work hours or leave their jobs entirely just because they cannot find care for their kids.

Tom, what do you think the best solution for this?

And it's a huge problem for parents.

It is a huge problem.

I love this bill.

I'm glad we got it through.

Through, across the finish line.

I was really worried because the Senate passed it very late.

It came to the House and didn't even get a hearing in the House Tax Committee.

So here's thing that happens.

It just falls through the cracks.

But in conference committee, yeah, I was very supportive of it.

We had a couple senators supportive of it.

We were able to to, to get it in that in Senate Bill 82, and become law.

I think it's real important.

I think childcare is important.

And this isn't a new tax credit.

We actually passed it in Senate Bill one, in the special session a few years ago.

But, you know, we didn't do a good job with that bill in terms of it.

We made it too cumbersome to use.

The credit wasn't enough.

So we talked to businesses, figured out what it would take.

So they would actually provide child care or pay for child care.

And that's and that's what these changes are.

And it had a diverse group of supporters and the Wichita Chamber supported it.

The United Methodist Health, a health ministry supported it.

The Kansas Section for children supported it.

So it was part of that kind of a diverse group of support.

But I think it's a really good bill.

I think it's a good step forward, and I think it will help expand child care in Kansas, which is very needed where small businesses, pretty receptive cities too as well.

Yeah.

Yes, yes, I think it will really help.

Small businesses are the ones that can get the big benefit from it because as you both know, the research shows that people are having less kids and they say childcare.

The cost of it is one of the biggest reasons why.

So Diane, your thoughts on this?

Yeah.

Well, I, I've been doing a little research on this lately, actually, because it came up in a, in a campaign interview I did, a few weeks ago.

Well, last week actually, and, so I, I wrote these numbers down because I wanted to make sure I got them right.

This is from a University of Kansas report in, 2022 on the cost of childcare, 15,000 a year for babies, 13,500 for older infants, who are the ones who are a little bit bigger but not out of diapers yet, 11,000 to 13,000 for toddlers who are potty trained and $9,000 for preschoolers.

And that's per year.

And and that's that's a lot of money.

The.

With the bill.

I mean, honestly, I wish it went farther.

It's kind of a drop in the ocean, when we're when we're talking about this, I think realistically, the people who are providing child care at the workplace are big companies, and, you know, so and, and also companies that have highly skilled and highly paid workers that are hard to get.

I don't think we're going to see this, well, well, with the changes we've made to the bill, it will allow them to take the tax credit for just paying for some, but for one of their employees to get childcare, you know, also, to take the tax credit for making contributions to community, childcare services to expand their services.

So, so I think those changes I do understand that.

And that is a that is a big help.

I think.

But but I think what what's going to happen here?

I mean, you know, the companies that offer these sorts of programs are the companies that have trouble finding workers.

And the reason they have trouble finding workers is because they need a particular skill set.

You know, if it's just some sort of generic company that's doing some generic thing, you know, you know, if they, you know, if the worker leaves, then they'll just get another worker, another thing to, that shouldn't be discounted in this these numbers that I read were 20, 22 numbers.

And it's worse now.

Well, and one of the reasons that it's worse now is because of the immigration crackdown, approximately 20%, about 1 in 5 child care workers are immigrants.

And many of those immigrants were people who are here on, on, work, work visas, deferred deportation orders, those kinds of things.

And those have been revoked by the Trump administration.

So, you know, you're seeing a situation where probably about well, I've seen surveys where a third of the, a third of of childcare centers say that they cannot get employees, to replace the immigrant workers who had to who had it, you know, they had to go underground.

Yeah.

Well, there's there's definitely a childcare shortage.

I was talking to a friend of mine, who has young kids, and they've been on waiting lists for months and and can't get in.

Or does the research showed that that some couples are opting for, let's say, the wife or the husband to leave their jobs to stay home?

They just can make it work more feasibly that way.

Some are.

But, you know, there's a lot of families that are living paycheck to paycheck and really need that second paycheck.

So it's very, very tough.

And, you know, I agree that we need to do more, but I think this bill will help.

I think it will help expand some child care services.

And they are badly needed.

So I think it's a good start.

Yeah, I'd like to see us do more.

But frankly, this and it was difficult to get this bill passed.

I thought it was going to fall to the ground.

So, I appreciate the effort.

Yeah.

You know, and I appreciate the governor signing it, but, you know, our work's not done here yet.

No, I agree with that.

Step in the right direction.

Yeah.

Okay.

We're going to move on now to a giant 1500 acres solar farm proposed for Sedgwick County, which remains in limbo.

Following a marathon public meeting, the Metropolitan Area Planning Commission listened to four hours of heated debate this week before delaying a vote until June.

Michigan Clean Energy wants to install six 600,000 solar panels and a battery storage system on farmland that would be southwest of Wichita.

Dozens of residents pushed back, citing impacts on property values and the environment, but supporters argue it brings progress and millions in new tax revenue.

So, Diane, we'll go to you first on this one.

What do you think about solar, this solar being built to the solar plant being built here?

Well, if you live near it, there's one way to bring down your property tax bill.

You know, that's something that's always, the stigmatize amuse me here is that, you know, when, you know, everybody complains about the property taxes, and then when somebody wants to build something, you know, they're it's going to drop my property values.

So it's like, you know, pick a side, you know, but, yeah, this, I mean.

It looks like this thing is too big and too, you know, just just too much for a county that is as urbanized as this county.

Nobody wants this in their backyard.

And and stop me if I'm wrong, Tom.

But my understanding is that they're going to that this energy is going to go into the West.

Are the Evergy into the Evergy system, and that, it'll just become part of the regular electric.

And so they'll either have to fly the thing or they'll have to pay the company for that power, which, and then and then the other part of this is, is we're generating enough power.

We're we're generating plenty of power for Kansas.

A lot of our power is getting taken away over into Missouri and, you know, so, I mean, do we really want to be the, the, I mean, I, I won't say, you know, dumping ground for, you know, making power for someplace far, far away, you know, I mean, it's well, it's we have enough power for now.

But, you know, the, the, the studies we see in the legislature saw the need for the for power to to to be p growing very, very fast.

So, you know, right now we need to plan ahead.

We need to kind of find ways to, to increase our power now, increase the grid now.

Because in the future, right now, we can sell the access to other states, which also, again, helps average ignore our bills, in theory at least.

And, well, gives us a power we're going to need in the future.

So so I think it is important that we look at power.

But I agree that, something that big in an urban area is always going to be tough, that that something that big needs to go more the more isolated area.

But, you know, wind power is very we have over 50 wind farms in Kansas.

They provide a lot of jobs.

It's providing a lot of energy.

We get a lot of sun in Kansas in spite of, you know, it doesn't seem our weather's weird, but we actually do get a lot of stuff.

So I think we should be, particularly in the summer months.

Yeah, for doing so.

You know, we need to take advantage of those natural resources, to help the power that we're going to need.

Especially if, you know, right now, very few people, for example, electric vehicles, if, if we, you know, if that gets doubles, triples the number of electric vehicles that move that direction, we're going to need a whole lot more power.

And that's just one example.

But but that's the kind of thing the centers, data centers are huge.

Yes, yes.

The other thing that nobody wants in their backyard.

Right.

Yes.

But they do drain a lot of power.

Yeah, yeah, it's that old balance people want to see progress, but when it affects them directly, then it's, that it's a little bit of a different story.

Okay.

Well, Wichita, as we all know, has long been known as the air capital of the world.

But that famous reputation was built almost entirely on airplanes, not helicopters.

Now, that is officially starting to change.

Bell Textron has opened a new state of the art assembly center right here in Wichita.

The 140,000 square foot facility was built specifically to manufacture the main body for the Army's next generation aircraft.

That's the MV 45 Cheyenne two.

The new aircraft boasts twice the speed and range of the legendary Blackhawk helicopter.

It will eventually replace up to 300 employees will ultimately work at the new Wichita site, with the very first completed fuselage expected to be delivered this summer.

So this is this is happening, Tom, how important is this project for the Wichita economy?

I think these kind of projects are very important for the Wichita kind of you know, I said, we've been there capital, the world manufacturing has been very important to Wichita.

These are good high paying jobs, the kind we need in the Wichita area.

So I'm very pleased to see this.

I hope we get more of these kind of projects.

Yeah, than our military contracts.

So a long term solution to growth, do you think?

Well they can't hurt.

Yeah.

You know, I mean, you know, I guess we're building the fuselages again.

That's that kind of tends to be what we do.

You know, we we get the we get the heavy lift part of the thing, you know, not the not the fancy parts, but and I'm, I, I'm not actually sure that this thing's a helicopter.

I think it's more of a, it's a, it's a tilt rotor.

It's a tilt rotor aircraft that can be used as a helicopter or the can that can.

Right, you know, can takeoff straight up.

But also, you know, when you get into cruise mode with the thing, those engines tilt forward and it's more like an airplane.

So it's kind of, you know, I mean, it's great.

It looks like a great piece of equipment.

I'd love to fly in one.

But, yeah, that, you know, and you know what Tom said about, you know, the jobs, I mean, the jobs, you know, these are going to be good jobs.

And, and that is that is a welcome.

That is a welcome.

That is welcome news in a town that often provides a lot of tax incentives for people who aren't generating good jobs.

So, you know, I think this is I think it's going to be great.

But if there's any any indication yet of the people working there will be hired from Kansas, or will these be people coming in from other cities?

I maybe it's too early to tell.

I think too early to tell, but I assume that we will get, you know, one of the things about Wichita in the aircraft and I r and everything we have here, we have the resources to kind of provide the workforce for these kind of projects.

Yeah.

So I'm assuming a lot of it will be will come locally.

But even if they do, even if they do hire from out of state, that's not you know, that's not a bad thing.

It's probably bringing in, you know, we'll be bringing in new people.

And the thing that everybody, you know, there's the thing that everybody tends to forget is that there's two there's really two sources of wealth in an economy.

There's, you know, in a, in an urban economy, there's manufacturing because you're making something and selling it at a profit someplace else.

And then there's tourism.

And, you're bringing people to your town and they're leaving money behind.

And that's the new money that comes into the economy.

Everything else is basically just all of us doing each other's laundry.

Right?

So, you know, it's kind of, you know, I mean, these kind of manufacturing jobs are worth their weight in gold.

And at least this is some diversification, as we mentioned in the opening, you know, we're so known for aircraft, but again, that's just some diversification.

And that can hurt with publicity for for the city.

Right?

That's right.

Okay.

Gentlemen, we thank you so very much.

Great discussions on a variety of topics.

And that is a wrap for this week.

Thanks again to Tom Sawyer and Diane Leffler for being here.

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

We hope you enjoyed the show and have a great weekend.