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Tactics will change, but goals of immigration reform advocates remain the same

Bill would include an end to in-state tuition breaks for illegal aliens.

Rep. Lance Kinzer, the Olathe Republican who sponsored a comprehensive immigration reform bill that failed to make it through the 2008 Legislature, said lessons learned during that campaign will guide his latest effort to crack down on illegal immigration.

Kinzer, the newly appointed chair of the House [Read more...]

Nervous ticks

THE FINANCIAL CRISIS: Flint Hills president points out the Legislature has shortchanged the state's pension fund for years. The result? A $10 billion problem.

The financial future of Kansas is grim, with a deficit that may be as high as $1 billion within the next two years. If that weren't bad enough, the Kansas Public Employees Retirement System portfolio is feeling the effects of Wall Street's anguish, with a loss of almost 30 percent between January and October of last year.

Now for the bad news. According to the new president of the Flint Hills Center for Public Policy, Dave Trabert, the situation's been made much worse by a lack of legislative funding. Between 1998 and 2007, the Kansas Legislature has only allocated KPERS an average of 71 percent of the actuarially required contributions.

This lack of legislative funding may have increased the unfunded actuarial accrued liability, or the gap between the value of assets KPERS has and the estimated liability for benefits already earned by members, to nearly $10 billion, according to Trabert. [Read more...]

Did Sebelius' paid day off cost taxpayers more than $9 million?

Ferris Beuller has nothing on Kansas bureaucrats

When Gov. Kathleen Sebelius declared last Friday a state holiday, giving all state employees a paid day off from work, it's a gift that may have cost Kansas taxpayers more than $9 million.

Sebelius Spokesperson Nicole Corcoran told Kansas Liberty that Sebelius and previous governors have given an additional vacation day, based on when the holiday lands in the week.

In a November letter to state employees, Sebelius told state workers that "the State of Kansas will be short $211 million in the current fiscal year. The projection for 2010 is even more dire," and said "to protect our children’s education and the most vulnerable Kansans, we must work together to make strategic cuts which safe guard those [Read more...]

Unpredictable predictions 2009

An unlikely cluster of Kansans looks over their shoulder - and into the future

Kansas Liberty polled some of the Kansans responsible for making some of the news we covered in 2008 to find out what they thought were the most memorable moments of the year - and to get predictions of what to expect for 2009. See what Bob Wolfe, Cinthia Hertel, Karl Peterjohn, Dr. David Prentice, Rep. Richard Carlson, Rep. Mike Kiegerl, Patrick Wilbur and Barb Nichols have to say.

Bob Wolfe, communications chair for Kansas chapter of the Sierra Club

Q) What was the low point of 2008?

A) The insistence by the Legislature to not take advantage of the opportunity for wind energy in Kansas and to remain stubbornly supportive of a source of energy that is a threat [Read more...]

Meet Arne Duncan

A new year, a new president, a new education secretary - and a new opportunity to avoid the education bureaucracy's same old failures. John R. LaPlante explains.

President-elect Barack Obama has finished putting together his cabinet, which includes a new secretary of education, Arne Duncan.

This appointment will likely mean some modest changes that could bear fruit down the road—and certainly more federal spending on what has traditionally been a matter for state and local governments.

Mr. Duncan is currently the superintendent of [Read more...]