January 14, 2022

2022 Session Begins

You thought last year was a mess – well – here we go again.   With the increased COVID-19 cases, variants, and major inflation, 2022 is going to be another challenge.  I am confident that we can meet these challenges with perseverance and by remembering the words of our Founding Fathers, that our government is of “We the People” and that every decision we make as legislators must be in support of our Constitution.

Wildfires

December 16, 2021, several communities in Kansas were devastated by wildfires.  The high winds, storms, and fires resulted in loss of life, homes, and livelihoods.  There has been an outpouring of help, but more is needed.  The Senate Tax Committee passed Senate Bill (SB) 318 out of committee. This Bill would allow a sales tax exemption on fencing material purchased as a result of losses from the wildfires.  The legislature has passed similar legislation in the past.  The difference in SB 318, is that it would not sunset so with any future fires the exemption would be available.

I offered an amendment to SB 318 that provides an option for County Commissioners to abate property taxes on agriculture or commercial property destroyed in a Governor declared disaster.  It passed unanimously.  Currently, County Commissioners have an option to abate property taxes on homes but they cannot abate property taxes on other property in a disaster.  It was reported that a Senator was concerned about the optional abatement because it might decrease K-12 funding from the 20 mil property tax.  Can you imagine losing almost all of your property and still having to pay property tax on it as if it wasn’t destroyed?

Personal Note

In less than a two-week period we lost several friends and family.  Two of them died from COVID-19, but the rest died from other causes.  We also have friends and family who are in the hospital and fighting to recover.  It has been a difficult time, but with God’s grace we find strength.

Some media and now social media allow people to make false claims about me not taking COVID-19 seriously.  This is fake news.  I have and will continue to take precautions and hope that you do also.  I will also continue to fight for your life, your liberty and your pursuit of happiness so that you may decide for yourself, not your government mandating and stripping you of your freedoms.

It is an honor and a privilege to serve as your 12^th District State Senator.

Caryn

www.KSLegislature.org

Governor Laura Kelly Announces Fiscal Year 2023 Budget

~ Governor Kelly keeps her promise to bring fiscal responsibility back to state government ~

TOPEKA – Governor Laura Kelly today announced her fourth budget recommendation. This budget builds on years of work by the Kelly Administration to restore the state’s fiscal prosperity, grow the state’s economy, expand the state’s workforce, and invest in the health and safety of the people of the state of Kansas.

“Fully funding K-12. Closing the Bank of KDOT. Balancing our budget. This is what the people of Kansas elected me to do,” Governor Laura Kelly said. “This budget not only restores state funding for critical services, it cuts the state sales tax on food. I encourage the Legislature to waste no time and send me a clean bill to Axe the Food Tax.”

The Governor’s budget fully funds K-12 for a fifth straight year and makes historic investments in workforce training and higher education to ensure that Kansans are ready to enter the workforce. By expanding Medicaid, the state of Kansas not only nets millions of dollars of enhanced federal matching funds, it allows more people to remain in the workforce and boosts local economies.

Recognizing that some revenues may be one-time only, the budget makes several one-time investments to reduce debt and increase structural balance, including paying off KPERS and other debts accrued under previous administrations, providing Kansas taxpayers with a $250 rebate, and making one-time investments and capital improvements in the state’s public safety, corrections, and juvenile justice systems.

Other highlights of this budget include:

• Responsibly cutting taxes for every Kansan: Unlike proposals that have focused the greatest benefit of tax reform on a small number of Kansans, cutting the state sales tax on food and providing a rebate for every Kansas taxpayer will ensure tax relief goes to the hardworking Kansans that power our state’s economy.
• Recognizing the service of law enforcement and other state employees: This budget calls for a minimum 5% pay increase for all state employees and includes funding to help recruit and retain State Highway Patrol officers, nurses, corrections officers, public defenders, Community Corrections, home and community-based service providers, child protection specialists, and others. It also includes funding to enhance pensions and new protective equipment and facility improvements for those working in secure facilities.
• Sustaining the state’s record-breaking economic growth: Kansas has continued record-breaking economic growth for a second straight year—bringing the two-year total of economic investment to over $7.6 billion. This budget builds on the Governor’s previous efforts to restore the Department of Commerce by fully returning the Economic Development Initiatives Fund to its intended purpose—economic development. In addition to efforts to enhance the state’s workforce through training and apprenticeships, the budget intends to capitalize on broadband development, encourage small business innovation, and develop and renovate new moderate-income housing.
• Achieving and maintaining school funding: This budget includes adequate school funding to meet the requirements of the Gannon settlement for a fifth straight year, ensuring that as students, parents, and teachers continue to learn and overcome the unprecedented challenges of the pandemic, schools have resources to help keep our kids on track to graduate, earn postsecondary degrees and certificates, and ultimately join the workforce.
• Fully closing the Bank of KDOT: This budget not only fulfills the Governor’s promise to close the Bank of KDOT, it ends other extraordinary transfers out of the State Highway Fund. These transfers for non-infrastructure programs such as Mental Health Grants and debt service on bonds will now be funded out of SGF, returning needed infrastructure dollars to their original purpose.
• Promoting workforce readiness and competitiveness: funding for postsecondary education has not recovered to pre-Great Recession levels in over a decade. This budget not only restores higher education funding and freezes tuition at four-year institutions, it includes additional funding for need-based aid, Excel in CTE, and National Guard scholarships so that more Kansans can seek the education and training they need to qualify for in-demand jobs. It also provides capital investment funding to ensure that all institutions remain engines of economic growth with new facilities and technology to increase the state’s competitiveness.
• Reducing fees and making payments on-time: Under previous administrations, “one-time” and “temporary” measures were put in place that added to KPERS debt, increased fees for vehicle registration, and delayed the final school payment into the next fiscal year. Coming off the recent repayment of the PMIB loan, this budget ends the DMV surcharge, pays off KPERS debt early, and returns the 12^th school payment to the current year. It also pays bonds early, improving the state’s structural balance and securing Kansas’ finances in the event of future national or international economic challenges.
• Strengthening Access to Mental Healthcare: With the lifting of the moratorium at Osawatomie State Hospital, this budget continues the work of ensuring mental health access closer to home by providing funding for regional crisis services and hospital beds, suicide prevention grants for local agencies, and expanding access to mental health teams in the state’s schools. It also provides new substance use treatment options for those in state hospitals and corrections facilities.
• Promoting healthcare affordability: expanding Medicaid is not only a good deal for the state of Kansas, it helps Kansans remain in the workforce and keeps local health providers in business. Our healthcare providers are essential to keeping local economies strong. This budget also funds enhanced post-partum Medicaid coverage for up to 12 months, improving mental and physical health for mothers and young families.
• Protecting the state and safeguarding our future: After the state experienced significant natural disasters in recent years, this budget provides funding for staff and one-time funding for upgrades of facilities and equipment for our National Guard and state health and environment lab.
• Fully funding the state water plan: for too many years, the state’s radical tax policies led the state to defund efforts to protect one of our most valuable resources: water. This budget fully funds the State Water Plan Fund for the first time since FY 2008—providing irrigation technology and other water-saving resources that will promote the resilience and abundance of our rural communities and ag industry for generations to come.
• Saving for tomorrow: Until this budget, Kansas has been unique among states to have either a small or non-existent budget stabilization fund. This budget ensures that Kansas has a real “Rainy Day Fund” in case national and international events threaten to harm our sustained economic growth.

  View the Governor’s full budget recommendation here. 

Governor Laura Kelly Delivers the 2022 State of the State Address

TOPEKA – The following is the transcript of Governor Laura Kelly’s 2022 State of the State Address.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. President, Madam Chief Justice, Lt. Governor Toland, statewide elected officials, members of the Legislature, Cabinet officers, leaders of the Kansas tribes, honored guests, and fellow Kansans.

After two years of challenges, of limited gatherings, it is my high honor to stand before you once again this evening to deliver my fourth State of the State Address.

To report on our shared successes.

And to present a blueprint for the final year of my first term.

To read the complete speech, please go here.

Inaugural Kansas soybean shipment delivered to China

TOPEKA – Lieutenant Governor and Commerce Secretary David Toland today congratulated Kansas grain wholesaler The DeLong Co. on its recent shipment of 500 metric tons of soybeans to Henan Shennong Extruded Feed Technology Co. in Henan, China – the first such direct containerized grain shipment to China ever from the state of Kansas.

The soybean shipment resulted from the 40-year Sister-State relationship between the State of Kansas and the Chinese province of Henan. In May of 1989, Kansas Governor John Carlin and Henan Governor Liu Jie signed an agreement establishing friendly Sister-State relations to develop cooperation, facilitate diplomacy and foster a strong business connection. In September of 2021, Kansas and Henan celebrated the 40^th anniversary of this long-standing relationship with a virtual event that included top political, economic, agricultural and educational leaders from Kansas and Henan.

“Kansas is a worldwide powerhouse of agriculture production,” Lieutenant Governor and Commerce Secretary David Toland said. “Our farmers and ranchers take their job of feeding the world very seriously, and we’re pleased that existing trade partnerships have led to the establishment of new customer relationships and markets abroad. Through our International Division at the Department of Commerce, we will continue to engage and facilitate new exchanges with our Sister-State and consumers worldwide.”

“Through exports, Kansas producers help feed the world,” Kansas Secretary of Agriculture Mike Beam said. “This monumental development of sending soybeans to Henan, China by way of a shipping container enhances the relationship with our Sister-State and her consumers.”

This soybean shipment marks the beginning of what the state hopes will be a continued dialogue leading to more such deals. To celebrate this inaugural Kansas-based shipment, leadership from both Kansas and Henan recently met virtually and agreed that discussions about future sales would continue.

“We are pleased to see the ongoing market development work of the Kansas Soybean Commission play a small role in the direct purchase of soybeans from a key state partner in the DeLong Company,” Kaleb Little, Kansas Soybean Commission Administrator, said. “The long-standing Kansas-Henan sister-state relationship continues to be mutually beneficial, adding value for the soybean producers of our state. This serves as a very tangible example of the return on investment of the soybean checkoff.”

Henan was originally chosen as a Sister-State for Kansas due to their agricultural role in China and their geographic location in the middle of the country. This year, both sides began negotiations for the export of Kansas products to Henan. As a result, The Delong Co., based in Edgerton, and Henan’s Shennong Extruded Feed Technology Co. made the agreement to export 500 metric tons of containerized soybeans from Kansas to Henan.

“We are thrilled about this first order placed by Henan Shennong,” Brandon Bickham, Delong’s Senior Exporter Director, said. “A direct contract like this helps us better understand our customer’s specific needs. We are confident that it also bodes well for our new business relationship with Shennong.”

About The DeLong Co., Inc.

The DeLong Co., Inc. is a sixth-generation, family-owned company, committed to cultivating prosperity – for their customers, employees and community. Headquartered in Clinton, Wisconsin, the company operates 38 locations around the U.S. and comprises six divisions of agricultural and logistical sales and services: grain, exports, agronomy, seed, transportation and wholesale feed. The DeLong Co., Inc. was an early innovator of shipping commodities via container and is currently the largest U.S. exporter of agricultural products by container. Learn more at delongcompany.com.

About the Kansas Department of Commerce

As the state’s lead economic development agency, the Kansas Department of Commerce strives to empower individuals, businesses and communities to achieve prosperity in Kansas. Commerce accomplishes its mission by developing relationships with corporations, site location consultants and stakeholders in Kansas, the nation and world. Our strong partnerships allow us to help create an environment for existing Kansas businesses to grow and foster an innovative, competitive landscape for new businesses. Through Commerce’s project successes, Kansas in 2021 was awarded Area Development Magazine’s prestigious Gold Shovel award and was named Site Selection Magazine’s Best Business Climate in the West North Central region of the United States. Find the Department’s strategic plan for economic growth here: Kansas Framework for Growth.

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