KEY POINTS:

-House K-12 Budget Committee is continuing to discuss potential school finance solutions, largely ignoring the Governor’s solution while Chairperson pushes HB 2395 (which education community opposes).

-Medicaid expansion reaches the debate phase on the House floor after the rules chair is overturned on a procedural ruling. The debate is expected to continue-possibly into the night.

-House K-12 Budget Committee Chairperson Kristey Williams has told her committee that they will convene a committee meeting tonight upon adjournment of the House.

House K-12 Budget continuing the discuss school finance solution

Yesterday, the House K-12 Budget Committee held a hearing on SB 142, the Senate school finance bill that addresses the Supreme Court ruling in Gannon. This bill matches the solution that was originally in SB 44, Governor Kelly’s school finance bill.

KNEA provided testimony in support of the bill as did KASB, United School Administrators of Kansas, Game On for Kansas Schools, the Kansas PTA, and a number of other organizations and individual school districts. SB 142 is a clean response to the Supreme Court decision and, at this time, the best response that has been put forward. It should be noted that Schools for Fair Funding does not believe this is the full amount needed. KNEA believes it is past time to send a legislative response to the Court and that this bill needs to be passed.

Today’s Committee schedule indicated that the committee would consider the bills that they have heard (HB 2395, the bill carried by House K-12 Budget Committee Chairperson, Kristey Williams and that is widely opposed by the education community, as well as SB 142, the bill the education community supports). But due to other actions today, we are not certain whether action will happen today or not – so read on to see why!

KanCare (Medicaid) Expansion comes to the House floor!

The House was set to debate and vote on a bill today dealing with “advanced practice registered nurses” when Rep. Kathy Wolfe Moore (D-Kansas City) moved to amend the bill by gutting it and inserting the contents of a Medicaid expansion bill that had been introduced but ignored by House leadership.

The germaneness of the amendment was challenged and the Rules Chair ruled the amendment as non germane. That ruling was in turn challenged which sets up a vote on “shall the ruling of the rules chair be sustained?” A NO vote means the ruling chair’s ruling is not sustained – it is overturned – and debate on the amendment can go forward. Historically, the rules chair is rarely overturned but in this case he was on a vote of 55 to 62.

Debate went on for some time with most of the time taken up by expansion opponent Brenda Landwehr (R-Wichita). Landwehr decried doing this “on the floor” and not property “vetting” the issue. The sad truth, of course, is that, as chair of the House Health and Human Services Committee, Landwehr could have held a hearing on the bill at any time and fully vetted it but she chose to block it. Instead she held a “round table discussion” of expansion without ever taking up the actual bill.

Speaking passionately in favor of expansion were Representatives Tom Cox (R-Shawnee) and Jim Kelly (R-Independence). Cox spoke of his own personal health challenges and how important it was to help other people through theirs. He pointed out that he was lucky to have affluent parents who could afford insurance and co-pays while many are not so lucky. Kelly shared his experience “at ground zero” where the hospital closes, doctors leave, and people desperately scramble to find health services. The Independence Hospital was the first to close, followed by Fort Scott, Oswego, and Horton. Thirty more are “on deck to close,” said Kelly. We should also remember the impact those closures have on the people who work in those hospitals as well as the impact on the local economy.

Opponents complained about deficits and the pressure on the budget – a budget they put at risk through votes first for the Brownback tax disaster and now through the passage of more tax cuts for multi-national corporations and wealthy individuals in SB 22. The budget is not a concern when cutting corporate taxes but it is when they have to vote on caring for working Kansans!

In the end, the amendment was adopted on a vote of 69 to 53.

It was then that Majority Leader Dan Hawkins (R-Wichita), an expansion foe, moved to rise and report. This was an unusual motion in that it was done before debate ended and a vote was taken on the bill. Hawkins noted that the intent was to allow folks to craft amendments which could be brought forward in the debate which would continue later.

The House then recessed until 3:45 – meaning a conflict with the scheduled 3:30 meeting of the K-12 Budget Committee. But Representative Williams announced that her committee would meet upon adjournment of the House tonight. And we have no idea when that might be!

Look for a more detailed update on tonight’s proceedings in tomorrow’s edition of Under the Dome.