Kansas Board of Regents president Reggie Robinson promised this week to make public the results of pending audits of five state universities. It took the intervention of Attorney General Steve Six last month to ensure that Kansans, and not just the regents, learned the troubling contents of an audit of Kansas State University. Audits of the University of Kansas and Pittsburg State University are expected to be completed this fall. The three others will come later. A subcommittee appointed by the regents also is exploring the idea of systematic audits of the universities, as Gov. Mark Parkinson has urged. State Sen. John Vratil, R-Leawood, expressed a worthy concern this week: that the audits under way not be whitewashed in anticipation of their public release. Because the universities are public institutions, the public deserves an unvarnished account of their finances and management.
Gov. Mark Parkinson and other Democrats continue to challenge suggestions that the party plans to hand Cedar Crest to Republican Sam Brownback next year. But “the election is 15 months away and the Democrats haven’t endorsed a candidate,” wrote Topeka Capital-Journal columnist Ric Anderson. “It’s getting close to showtime — very close. The pews are full, the organ is playing, the minister is at the altar, and the bride hasn’t shown up. We’ve heard all kinds of names come and go — John Carlin, Dan Glickman, Nancy Boyda, Jill Docking and Bill Kurtis, to name a handful. But no one has stuck.” Anderson helpfully wrote the text of an announcement declaring Parkinson’s candidacy (should the governor rethink his decision not to run) in which Parkinson could point to “this crucial juncture in our state’s history” and the need for “a full and spirited debate on the issues,” and attribute the changing of his mind to “much soul-searching and extensive discussion” with his family.
Former Gov. Kathleen Sebelius made a big show in 2003 of eliminating the state’s central motor pool and selling underused state vehicles. But reviews by state auditors have calculated that the state hasn’t saved much money, because it has had to spend more than it used to renting cars and reimbursing state employees for using their private cars. A new report also found that at least nine Kansas government employees last year rented vehicles for more than 300 days, the Topeka Capital-Journal reported. That doesn’t make sense to state Rep. John Grange, R-El Dorado, given that the average person is on the job only about 250 days annually. “That smacks of somebody doing something that was not right,” Grange said.
Attorney General Steve Six was appointed to his job in 2008 by then-Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, making his 2010 campaign his first for the job — and seemingly making the Democrat vulnerable to GOP challengers. But are the decisions of two prominent Republican attorneys to run instead for secretary of state a sign of Six’s perceived strength? Kris Kobach, former Kansas GOP chairman, and Senate Majority Leader Derek Schmidt, R-Independence, are expected to face off in a GOP primary to succeed retiring Secretary of State Ron Thornburgh. Six has less well-known competition, though: Junction City prosecutor Ralph DeZago, a former assistant attorney general, announced this month that he intends to run for the Republican nomination to be Kansas’ top cop.
Kansas House Speaker Mike O’Neal, R-Hutchinson, isn’t losing sleep about the state’s recent cuts to public school funding. Between the finance formula and federal stimulus funds, he told the Hutchinson News, “there are some school districts that actually will get more money this year than last year.” Another court challenge by school districts, he said, “would be very poor timing on their part. In terms of agencies that consume taxpayer dollars, they were dealt with in a better and more benign fashion than virtually anyone else. We are in a recession and everyone has to do their share.”
O’Neal also said: “We’re not failing our kids. If you go out and see what our schools are able to do, you’ll see that we’re doing a bang-up job. Does that mean that schools are going to be able to afford all the new bells and whistles or expand their curriculum? No. They’ll have to tighten their belts, but we’re not depriving the kids with these cuts of what is required under law for education. We’re actually doing pretty darn well.”
Two months into the job, Lt. Gov. Troy Findley remains one of the state’s highest-ranking and least-recognizable public officials, the Topeka Capital-Journal reported. So what percentage of Kansans could name the current lieutenant governor? “I do not know. Five percent?” Findley told the newspaper. “I think we’d probably be lucky if we were there.” But as he attends public events and conducts other official duties, he at least is starting to look familiar. “I notice when I go out and about, people will kind of give you that look, ‘I think I know who you are, but am just not quite certain,’ ” he said.
Next year’s GOP primary for Kansas secretary of state suddenly looks like a contest rather than a walk for former Kansas Republican Party chairman Kris Kobach (in photo). Senate Majority Leader Derek Schmidt, R-Independence, has appointed a campaign treasurer for the race to replace four-term Republican Ron Thornburgh. J.R. Claeys of Salina is also seeking the GOP primary nod.
Meanwhile, voters curious about what makes Kobach tick — and drives his nationwide crusade to fight illegal immigration — may find enlightenment in a New York Times profile. Kobach, who now teaches at the University of Missouri-Kansas City law school, joined the Bush Justice Department just days before the Sept. 11 attacks and reportedly was stunned to learn that several of the hijackers had been the subject of traffic stops but the police didn’t know they were in the country illegally. “That impressed on me in a very salient way that there was a huge missed opportunity there that might have caused the 9/11 plot to unravel,” he told the Times, explaining his motivation to find ways to turn local police into the “eyes and ears” of federal immigration authorities.
Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., may need to update his biography, which still says he “was the youngest secretary of agriculture in Kansas history.” Josh Svaty, the Ellsworth state lawmaker chosen last week by Gov. Mark Parkinson and already on the job this week, will be 29 until November. Brownback was a 30-year-old Manhattan attorney when the Kansas Board of Agriculture named him ag secretary in September 1986. Then again, Svaty is “acting” secretary “until the full Senate can consider the nomination,” according to a release from Parkinson’s office.
What a difference half a year makes. In December, then-Gov. Kathleen Sebelius said it was “important to continue my service as governor of the great state of Kansas, a job that I love and have been honored to hold.”
Asked Wednesday by Jon Stewart on “The Daily Show” about how things are going in her new job as secretary of Health and Human Services, Sebelius said: “Piece of cake. It’s why I ran for public office. It’s why I joined this administration. This is what it’s all about.”
Stewart went on: “You were the governor of a heartland state. You left in the middle of your term for a higher calling. Why are governors such quitters?” Sebelius jokingly responded: “You know, didn’t want to get bored. Had to find something else to do.”
As the front-runner to succeed Secretary of State Ron Thornburgh next year, former Kansas Republican Party leader Kris Kobach should know that his words matter, even those spoken in fun among GOP friends. Yet he seemed surprised that Democrats went after him for joking Saturday at a Leavenworth County Republican Party barbecue that President Obama and God had something in common — the lack of a birth certificate. (He added that the difference between the two was that God only takes 10 percent of a person’s income.)
“Kansans want elected officials who stand above the peddling of partisan lies and conspiracy theory. This is yet another example of why Kris Kobach is unfit for elected office,” declared Kansas Democratic Party executive director Kenny Johnston.
“Lighten up. It’s just a joke,” Kobach told the Lawrence Journal-World, adding, “Are they really suggesting it is forbidden to tell jokes about Barack Obama?”
For the record: The director of Hawaii’s Department of Health has confirmed that Obama was born in Honolulu, and nonpartisan observers have examined the birth certificate and verified its authenticity.
Even Kobach said this week: “Until a court says otherwise, I believe Barack Obama is a natural-born citizen.”
With the recent trial and conviction of Kenneth Wilson for the March 2008 shooting death of farmer Scott Noel in Osborne County, Attorney General Steve Six became the first sitting attorney general to personally prosecute a criminal case in Kansas in 34 years. Even with that success, Kansans may wonder whether Six’s time is better spent managing his staff. But in a new commentary, Six wrote that to be a good leader he needs to be active in court, “setting an example for other attorneys in my office. I can do that by prosecuting criminal cases and arguing before the United States Supreme Court on behalf of Kansas farmers who desperately need precious water for their crops and livestock.”
That courtroom win also won’t hurt the Democrat’s campaign next year. But against whom? Perhaps Senate Majority Leader Derek Schmidt, R-Independence, will challenge Six. Schmidt has said he will announce his plans soon; beyond the attorney general job, Schmidt’s options include the 4th Congressional District seat and secretary of state.
President Obama may steal another top-notch administrator from Kansas, darn him. This time it’s Kansas Education Commissioner Alexa Posny, whom Obama nominated for assistant secretary for special education and rehabilitative services. Posny has been a steady, capable leader at the Kansas Department of Education since 2007. “I’ve never known anyone more knowledgeable” on education issues, former State Board of Education member Carol Rupe told The Eagle editorial board. Rupe jokingly lamented, “The president can take our governor but not our education commissioner.”
Cutting the state budget has consequences, and one of them is that Kansas is less safe. As a result of about $23.5 million in cuts, the Kansas Department of Correction has lost 300 positions and decimated a number of programs aimed at preventing inmates from reoffending, the Lawrence Journal World reported. “We’re not as safe as we were,” Corrections Secretary Roger Werholtz told an oversight committee last week. Are lawmakers going to put that quote on their campaign literature?
“If he manages to get the state through this difficult budget year and puts together a reasonable budget for the coming fiscal year, well, that would be the equivalent of Lassie pulling a child out of a burning barn,” Martin Hawver of Hawver’s Capitol Report wrote about Gov. Mark Parkinson. Hawver also predicted that GOP lawmakers would maneuver to make sure that Parkinson “at some point has to do something so distasteful and drastic to save the state’s budget” that he couldn’t change his mind and run for election in 2010. “Republicans are happy to hear Parkinson say he won’t seek election,” Hawver wrote, “but being the party of belts and suspenders, they’d like to make sure he couldn’t be elected, anyway.”
How much overtime is too much at state agencies? A new state audit suggests they need to do a better job of managing their employees’ overtime hours, identifying $13.1 million in overtime pay in the 2007-08 fiscal year and more than 150 employees who earned at least $10,000 that way. The Kansas Department of Transportation spent $4.2 million on overtime. The Kansas Highway Patrol spent $2 million, including $29,000 to an explosives expert. Two Kansas Lottery employees worked more than 700 hours of overtime, increasing their annual income by nearly 50 percent. (At least the state was reimbursed for some of that overtime by a Rhode Island contractor, according to Ed Van Petten, executive director of the Kansas Lottery.) A physician at the Kansas Neurological Institute in Topeka augmented a $40,000 salary with $36,000 of overtime. Unfortunately, the remedy recommended by state auditors — hiring more permanent staff — will be hard until the budget crisis passes.
The state’s approval this week of $700 million in budget transfers will enable it to make payments to school districts and pay tax refunds. That’s good. But the transfers also reflect the rocky condition of state finances, which has already required $160 million in allotment cuts this month and still has no margin for error. Authorizing certificates of indebtedness in July isn’t unusual. But this year’s transfers are about double the normal amount.
“I’m getting used to my new title, ‘Madam Secretary.’ First, no one would ever want me to be their secretary, and I’ve never aspired to be a madam. And now I’m both.” — Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, addressing the American Health Lawyers Association
“So if they get hit by a bus, they’ll be OK. Well, not OK, but at least they’ll have insurance.” — Sebelius again, referring to the many Americans with only catastrophic health coverage
“The Legislature absolutely failed its responsibility.” — Gary Sherrer, member of the Kansas Board of Regents, on the Legislature’s decision to continue to phase out several taxes while cutting education funding, which forced tuition hikes
“I would feel good confessing my sins to Bob.” — Regent Dan Lykins, suggesting that retiring University of Kansas chancellor Robert Hemenway would have made a good priest
Congratulations to former Attorney General Robert Stephan for being honored this week by Gov. Mark Parkinson for his work on behalf of crime victims. A plaque recognizing the former Wichitan is being placed by a tree that was planted on the Capitol grounds 20 years ago to commemorate the passage of the Kansas Crime Victims’ Bill of Rights. During the 1989 legislative process, Stephan said, “My firm conviction that crime victims need to be guaranteed certain rights flows from an appreciation of how they have been denied access to the criminal justice system in the past.” Stephan continues to work on behalf of crime victims as chairman of the Governor’s Domestic Violence Fatality Review Board and by trying to raise public awareness about domestic violence.
Through Tuesday, Kansas drivers could hog the left lane of multilane highways and risk only a honk or dirty look. As of today, they can get an officer warning if they loiter in the left lane on roads outside cities. A year from today, they may draw a fine. Is this the most important measure the Legislature passed this year? No. But it puts the law on the side of those who’ve always taken care to use the left lane sparingly, for passing and left turns.
Last spring the city of Wichita didn’t get far in Topeka with a legislative proposal to allow higher fines for speeders along Kellogg and other statistically deadly roadways in the state, despite Kellogg’s 2008 death toll of seven. But last week city officials got some more ammunition, as part of a radar blitz that resulted in 22 citations on 60 mph Kellogg — one driver going 107 mph and another (with a revoked license) going 85 mph. Such recklessness defies belief and justifies officers’ special attention to Kellogg. But the question remains: Would a driver willing to go 107 mph and risk a $291 minimum fine be fazed by the threat of a $592 fine?
Faced with a deep state spending cut, the Kansas Board of Regents and the state’s universities had to find more money somewhere for the fall. Unfortunately, the natural place to look was to students and their families, in the form of newly approved tuition increases ranging from 3.9 to 8.5 percent. Wichita State University is to be credited for trying to use stimulus money to offset the pain with automatic scholarships for in-state students. Still, there’s no telling how many wannabe students will be deterred by any tuition increase — and there have been many this decade. Put “more affordable tuition” on the lengthening list of things the state needs to work on once the economy improves.
Even though the Senate seat he’s leaving next year has sparked a GOP family feud, Sam Brownback appears to have broken a cycle of GOP gubernatorial primaries going back at least six elections. The Kansas City Star’s Steve Kraske hands it to the two-term senator in a column on today’s Opinion page: “Brownback has salted his conservatism with just enough pragmatism to give pause to even die-hard skeptics,” Kraske writes. He concludes: “Brownback is off to Cedar Crest. Here’s betting that with a few years of executive experience, he’ll try one more time for residence in another mansion — that big, white one in Washington, D.C.”
The Kansas Board of Regents had help in deciding to do the right thing and release the results of its audit of questionable financial transactions at Kansas State University. The release came after the Manhattan Mercury filed an open-records complaint with Attorney General Steve Six (in photo), whose office decided the audit should be public. “Shedding light on the transactions outlined in the audit helps to inform the public about the practices employed by the athletic department and will help Kansas State improve in the future,” Six’s spokeswoman, Ashley Anstaett, told the Kansas City Star. It shouldn’t take another open-records complaint to convince the regents to release the similar audits of the University of Kansas and Pittsburg State University under way.
Kansans may not be thinking much about the increasingly likely governorship of Sen. Sam Brownback starting in 2011, but other media observers are on it. The blog Feministing fretted: “Brownback equates reproductive rights with slavery, says rape and incest survivors shouldn’t have access to abortion, has opposed contraception access for low-income women, supported the global gag rule, and has backed a whole host of abortion restrictions. So, yeah, he’d be bad news for the women of Kansas.” And a Brownback item on the liberal American Prospect’s Tapped blog was headlined: “New Front in Abortion Wars: the Kansas Governor’s Mansion.”
“A no-comment day.” — Sen. Pat Roberts (in photo), R-Kan., as he and other Senate Republicans brushed off media requests Wednesday for reaction to news of Nevada Sen. John Ensign’s extramarital affair
“A wonderfully quiet town that is sometimes shocked into the limelight.” — KAKE News anchorman Larry Hatteberg, describing Wichita in Time magazine
“It’s like a guy coming up from the Triple-A trying to knock off a major leaguer.” — Kansas State University political science professor Joe Aistrup, on why Ron Thornburgh opted not to challenge Sam Brownback for the GOP gubernatorial primary
“Iraq and a lot of the skirmishes we are in are about energy. . . . We feel it makes more sense to put wind turbines on our prairie instead of our fine young men and women under the prairie.” — Kirk Lowell, executive director of CloudCorp, on the Meridian Way Wind Farm
“I really believe that, if the right decisions are made, Kansas can be the renewable energy capital of the world in the same way that we are the Air Capital of the World.” — Gov. Mark Parkinson
