January tax collections in Kansas exceed estimates

January total tax collections in Kansas have exceeded estimates, according to a news release from Gov. Laura Kelly.

Total tax collections were $944.5 million in January, which was 14.5 percent more than the month estimate, according to the governor’s office. It was an 18.7 percent growth over January 2021.

“Over the past three years my administration has taken steps to restore the Kansas economy, and that fiscal responsibility has paved the way to provide direct tax relief to Kansas taxpayers,” Gov. Kelly said in the news release. “That relief will come specifically through proposals like axing the state’s sales tax on food. I urge the Legislature to send a clean bill to my desk quickly, so we can get this done for Kansas families.”

Individual income tax collections were $542.2 million. That is $82.2 million, or 17.9%, more than the estimate and 18.4% more than the previous January. Wage withholding remains strong going into 2022 reflecting both improved statewide employment and accompanying wage growth.

Retail sales tax collections were $258.2 million for January. This is $18.2 million, or 7.6%, more than the estimate and 14.9% more than January 2021. Compensating use tax collections also exceeded estimates by 5.2%. Those collections are also 30.2% more than the previous January. Both retailer’s sales tax and compensating use tax collections established new monthly collection records in January 2022.

“Individual income tax, corporate income tax, retailer’s sales tax, and compensating use tax all continue to perform well as the state’s primary revenue sources,” Secretary of Revenue Mark Burghart said. “Increased holiday spending in December accounts in large part for the record sales and compensating use tax collections in January.”

According to sales tax distribution figures on the Kansas Department of Revenue’s website, Wyandotte County had $2.45 million in January 2022 sales tax distributions compared to $2.2 million in January 2021, an 11 percent increase.

Kansas City, Kansas, had sales tax distribution figures of $3.26 million in January 2022 compared to $3.6 million in January 2021, for an 11.5 percent increase.

For sales tax reports, see https://www.ksrevenue.gov/prsalesreports.html.

  • Information from Gov. Laura Kelly’s office

Kansas man who posed as pathologist and duped hundreds will plead guilty in federal court

by Dan Margolies, KCUR and Kansas News Service

At least 375 clients paid Shawn Parcells more than $1.1 million in fees between May 2016 and May 2019, according to the federal indictment.

A Kansas resident who duped hundreds of people into paying him for autopsies that were never performed or completed is set to plead guilty to federal fraud charges.

Shawn Lynn Parcells, who held himself out as a pathologist although he has no medical degree, filed a “notice of intent to change plea” in federal court in Topeka on Tuesday. A hearing on the change of plea is scheduled for March 3.

Parcells could not be reached for comment. His lawyers did not return calls seeking comment.

A federal grand jury indicted Parcells in November 2020 on 10 counts of wire fraud. Through his business, National Autopsy Services in Topeka, Parcells charged clients $3,000 up front for pathology reports to determine the cause of death of clients’ next of kin, according to the indictment.

Parcells allegedly convinced prospective clients through his website that National Autopsy Services had office locations throughout the United States and some international locations, “giving the impression that NAS was a large business operation when in fact the defendant operated only one morgue facility and a ‘Corporate Office’ in Topeka,” the indictment stated.

At least 375 clients paid him more than $1.1 million in fees between May 2016 and May 2019, according to the indictment.

Parcells faces up to 20 years in prison and fines of $250,000 on each wire fraud count. The government is also seeking the forfeiture of the fees he was paid.

His guilty plea in federal court would follow his conviction three months ago by a Wabaunsee County jury on three counts of felony theft and three misdemeanor counts of criminal desecration. He’s scheduled to be sentenced in Wabaunsee County on Feb. 28.

Parcells, 42, worked as a pathologist’s assistant in the Jackson County Medical Examiner’s Office between 1996 and 2003. In 2014 he appeared numerous times on cable news shows as a supposed expert in the investigation into the fatal police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.

In addition to the criminal cases against him, Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt has filed a civil suit alleging Parcels had a contract in Wabaunsee County to conduct coroner-ordered autopsies but failed to complete them in accordance with Kansas law. Schmidt alleged that Parcells duped at least 82 consumers.

Parcells, who has lived in Leawood, Overland Park and Topeka, has been free on bond since his federal indictment.

In 2019, he was charged in Johnson County District Court with driving under the influence and leaving the scene of an accident. He pleaded no contest to the first count without admitting guilt, saying he was under the influence of medication he was taking for depression.

He was sentenced to 12 months’ probation, but his probation was revoked in February 2021 for failing to obtain a substance abuse evaluation and failing to pay various court-ordered costs.

Johnson County court records indicate that at the time he was cited, Parcells was driving a 2014 Jeep Grand Cherokee with the license plate “AUTOPSY.”

The Kansas News Service is a collaboration of KCUR, Kansas Public Radio, KMUW and High Plains Public Radio focused on health, the social determinants of health and their connection to public policy.
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House reopens book on releasing public education funding to aid private school students

Bill uses state tax dollars to finance transfers of at-risk or low-income students

by Tim Carpenter, Kansas Reflector

Topeka — Two-term Marais Des Cygnes Valley school board member Caleb McNally put in simple terms potential harm of a Kansas House bill allowing low-income or at-risk students to use state tax dollars earmarked for their public education to finance enrollment at a private school.

McNally said 55% of students in the small eastern Kansas district would be eligible for the proposed school-choice program.

“If 55% of them left — even 25% of them left — it would kill our school district,” he said. “It would disappear. We’d fold up shop.”

Advocates and critics of House Bill 2553 shared their views Tuesday with members of the House K-12 Education Budget Committee. Their attention centered on legislation creating education savings accounts administered by the state treasurer’s office that would funnel state tax dollars to eligible students who leave public schools.

The bill would establish for the 2023-2024 school year a system of financial support for full- or part-time students shifting to accredited or nonaccredited private schools. Under the bill, students choosing to be homeschooled wouldn’t qualify. The initiative would cover a transferring student’s tuition and fees, textbook, transportation, therapy, tutoring or testing costs as well as tuition for online learning programs or college courses.

The bill would mandate the state pay interest to participating families on average daily balances in school-choice accounts, but the cash used to pay private educational expenses would be tax-free.

The Kansas State Department of Education couldn’t estimate what portion of the 450,000 students attending K-12 public schools across the state would make use of the Student Empowerment Program. The program would likely redirect millions of dollars annually in education funding to private schools. It could cost millions of dollars for the state to establish and administer. Eventually, the incentive designed to bolster enrollment at private schools would shrink state aid to public education.

During the 2021 legislative session, the Kansas House approved a comparable bill 65-58. It wasn’t considered by the Kansas Senate.

School choice champions

Jason Bedrick, director of policy at EdChoice, said the House committee should dismiss a doomsday complaint of school-choice skeptics that such programs significantly harmed public education. EdChoice is a nonprofit based in Indianapolis dedicated to increasing appropriation of tax dollars to families choosing to send children to private or parochial schools rather than to public schools.

“Thirty years ago this may have been a legitimate concern,” said Bedrick, a former analyst at the Cato Institute’s Center for Educational Freedom. “We now have decades of experience showing that actually the exact opposite phenomenon happens.”

There is an urgent need for the Legislature to financially support students eligible for the free- or reduced-lunch program or eligible for at-risk educational services as they transitioned to private schools, said Dave Trabert, of the Kansas Policy Institute.

He said KPI commissioned a survey of 500 registered voters that indicated seven of 10 respondents agreed taxpayer-funded accounts should be available to parents if they were convinced the public school district wasn’t meeting academic needs of children.

“Sadly,” Trabert said, “intransigence on the part of state and local education officials offers little hope of material improvement without legislative intervention.”

A few objections

Democratic state Treasurer Lynn Rogers, who the bill specified as administrator of the private-school choice program, rattled off concerns about details of the bill. He said it would be difficult to launch the program by the proposed Jan. 1 deadline. The state’s ABLE Act, which created state savings accounts for people with disabilities, required two years of preparation before the first accounts opened in 2017.

“That program is substantially smaller than the one proposed here in terms of the number of potential accounts and the amount of rulemaking necessary for the program,” he said.

Rogers, who served from 2001 to 2017 on the Wichita school board, said the bill would limit the state treasurer to auditing one private school each year selected at random. He said that restraint would be insufficient to deter fraudulent activity. For contrast, he said, public school districts undergo routine budget, special education and transportation expenditure audits. It’s important to hold schools receiving state tax dollars to the same standards, he said.

“Other states have had substantial issues with improper use of funds,” Rogers said. “In Arizona, audits have found that funds were spent on food, clothes, entertainment products, gift cards, a haunted house, and at a family planning clinic. Arizona has recovered less than 10% of misused funds under their program.”

Michael Poppa, executive director of the Mainstream Coalition, challenged the wisdom of directing tax funding to parochial schools. The Kansas Constitution guarantees a suitable education to children, he said, but the legislation would force taxpayers to foot the bill for children enrolled at private schools that discriminated against children based on religion, sexual orientation, academic standing, behavioral issues and special-education status.

“House Bill 2550 is a transparent attempt to fund private educational institutions with public tax money,” Poppa said. ” Though it is portrayed as a bill for students in need, there are no guarantees that these students will actually benefit. This bill instead allows for a broad cross section of private and religious schools to benefit.”

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