Month: September 2022

KCK school board approves budget

The Kansas City, Kansas, Board of Education on Tuesday night approved a budget with a nearly flat mill levy of 49.650 mills, down slightly from 49.656 mills.

According to the budget document, total Kansas City, Kansas, Public Schools expenditures for the 2022-2023 year are $578.1 million. The school district has transfers of $97.89 million scheduled, for net school district expenditures of $480,205,312, according to the budget document.

The total school district taxes levied have risen from $40.9 million in 2020-2021 to $43.58 million in 2021-2022 and $45.54 million in 2022-2023, according to the budget document.

Valuations have increased in the county during the past year, meaning that a flat mill levy could result in a slight tax increase for those whose valuations increased.

The budget was approved on a 4-2 vote after public hearings were held. Voting no were Wanda Brownlee Paige and Dr. Valdenia Winn. Voting yes were Yolanda Clark, Maxine Drew, Janey Humphries and Randy Lopez.

No one spoke at the public hearings.

Dr. Winn said the majority of the board had not reviewed the department budgets closely, but merely rubber-stamped it. She said she had tried to look at cost savings to reduce the total amount and tax burden or finding cost savings to redirect to students’ education.

“I vote no because the board does not comply with state law by requiring the administration to spend certain funds on state-approved best practices in order to address students’ educational shortcomings. I have mentioned this in past as well as present administrations. I stand and demand accountability for the community and the taxpayer. It appears the board refuses to take a stand and demand full accountability from the administration past and present.”

Randy Lopez, board president, said the board had full access to all the budget information, and that full information was made available to the board at several meetings, with the board having the opportunity to question the staff.

The board asked questions and they had several conversations, he said. The administration offered recommendations and responses to the questions asked, Lopez said. They reviewed department budgets and the full budget, he said.

Dr. Winn said she did not say the board did not have access, she said they did not fully review it.

To see more details from the Sept. 13 meeting, visit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwx-sPYRdoE.

Kobach v. Mann: Attorney general candidates diverge on Supreme Court selection reform

Attorney General Schmidt prefers federal model; Gov. Kelly not a fan

by Tim Carpenter, Kansas Reflector

Topeka — Republican and Democratic candidates for attorney general in Kansas disagree on whether the state Constitution ought to be amended to give the Kansas Senate veto power over a governor’s nominees for the Kansas Supreme Court.

GOP candidate Kris Kobach said Kansas should adopt the federal model relied upon to fill vacancies on the U.S. Supreme Court. Under that approach, the president unilaterally nominates a person to the nation’s highest court subject to consent by the U.S. Senate.

Democratic nominee Chris Mann, however, said he preferred to continue with Kansas’ merit-based nomination process for justices of the state Supreme Court. Kansas has followed this concept since 1958 when the state’s voters embedded in the state Constitution the idea of a commission selecting finalists and the governor making the state Supreme Court appointment without Senate involvement.

Mann, a Lawrence attorney, said the federal process would unnecessarily inject partisan politics of the Senate into selection of the seven justices of the state Supreme Court.

“As an attorney, and having seen and witnessed that process, I think the process works well now,” Mann said. “We need to make sure we’re continuing to make nonpartisan selections for our judiciary.”

The commission

Under the current system for filling seats on the state Supreme Court, a nine-member commission conducts public interviews with applicants and recommends three finalists to the governor. A Kansas governor draws upon that list when making the decision.

Critics of the existing Supreme Court selection process have objected because five members of the commission — a majority — are chosen by Kansas lawyers rather than politicians. Advocates of the current format of filling state Supreme Court vacancies argue vetting by the commission emphasized merit while the federal option invited cronyism.

Kansas GOP governors put one justice on the state Supreme Court in the past 20 years, while Kansas Democratic governors named seven justices to the state Supreme Court in that span.

Kobach, a rural Lecompton resident and former secretary of state, said he had advocated for 15 years alteration of the state Constitution so Kansas mirrored the federal model. He asserted Kansas’ merit-selection commission was “deeply flawed.”

“I don’t think it has produced the best judiciary nor has it produced a nonpartisan judiciary. I think most attorneys, if you ask them personally, would say we actually have a fairly partisan Supreme Court right now,” Kobach said.

‘Envy of the world’

Attorney General Derek Schmidt, who is running for governor against Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly, said reliance on the federal model for filling state Supreme Court vacancies would add transparency to the process. He is a former state senator.

“I believe the United States’ federal judiciary, with all of its warts, is the envy of the world and is tremendous in terms of its contribution to our overall system of government,” Schmidt said.

In 2013, then-Gov. Sam Brownback signed a bill that altered the system for making appointments to the Kansas Court of Appeals. The Republican governor argued the federal model should be applied to the state Court of Appeals and state Supreme Court.

The Brownback-era law abandoned merit-selection reviews by the commission in favor of a closed process in which the governor was solely responsible for nominating state Court of Appeals judges. Under the law, the 40-member Senate could accept or reject nominees by majority vote.

Brownback’s first pick to the Court of Appeals under the revised system was Caleb Stegall, who was general counsel to the governor. Stegall was confirmed to the Court of Appeals. Brownback subsequently appointed him to the state Supreme Court via the merit-selection process.

Gov. Laura Kelly, who is seeking reelection in November, implemented a policy by executive order in 2020 so a Court of Appeals Nominating Commission would review qualifications of applicants, conduct interviews with them and submit three nominees for her consideration.

Her executive order didn’t alter state law requiring Court of Appeals nominees to undergo confirmation votes by the state Senate. In 2020 and 2021, the GOP-dominated Senate rejected Kelly’s nomination of Carl Folsom, with Republican senators complaining Folsom’s career as a state and federal public defender lacked breadth.

Kansas Reflector stories, www.kansasreflector.com, may be republished online or in print under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.

See more at https://kansasreflector.com/2022/09/13/kobach-v-mann-attorney-general-candidates-diverge-on-supreme-court-selection-reform/