We are at the halfway point of the general session for the legislature. Committee meetings finished on Monday. The rest of the week was spent in session on the floor of the House considering bills passed from committees so far.

The governor’s plan for KPERS was among the first bills we debated. There has been a lot of discussion about KPERS’ funding plan. When I arrived in 2011, there was support across party lines to make changes to the pension, including increasing our projected payments. The former payment plan, while easier to consistently pay because it was smaller, was insufficient to meet the growing liability.

It has been suggested the Brownback tax experiment was in part responsible for the growing KPERS liability. It is accurate to say there were missed and delayed payments during those eight years.

However, the higher payment schedule set in 2012, though difficult to meet, did help us make progress.

From 2011 to 2018, $4.524 billion was contributed to KPERS, including a $1 billion bond. This is roughly double the $2.178 billion, including a $500 million bond, contributed from 2003-2010.

The percent of KPERS benefits that were funded in 2003 was 74.1 percent. This fell to 56.8 percent in 2011 and rebounded to 66.2 percent in 2018.

(Those of you who remember the market conditions of 2008-09 might further consider that KPERS uses a five year averaging of gains and losses for the funded ratio. That means many of the losses through 2009 had not yet been recognized in the 2011 valuation.)

During debate, an amendment was offered to not enact the lower payment schedule (or reamortize) as proposed in the governor’s budget. Despite some claims that the payment schedule had become a partisan issue, the vote was unanimous to pass the amendment. This means we will not re-amortize at this time.

This left the provision to pay off an additional $268 million of the liability in the bill. The measure shared overwhelming bi-partisan support and passed.

There were several bills on criminal justice reform. Here is a very brief explanation of two of those bills.

House Bill (HB) 2518 ensures tougher penalties on repeat offenders of domestic violence. It also increases the use of proven risk assessment tools to better identify those most likely to become repeat offenders.

HB 2708 increases the availability of substance abuse treatment programs for people on diversion and helps someone on probation have their programs follow them if they should move across county lines.

There were many bills debated on the floor, and most passed with a wide bi-partisan majority. If you are interested in details of specific bills, please contact my office.

One aspect of floor debate that typically takes the most time are amendments. While this is an important and necessary part of making legislation better, it can also take us in a dangerous direction.

The entire body is the right place for debate, but not conducting detailed research. Often just the benefits of the proposed measure are extolled, and we must be careful to help think through possible implications.

For example, a tax credit may be offered, but we may have little knowledge of the total cost, or fiscal note. We need to consider this information not only in the first year, but long-term.

Next, we want to consider the fit with other programs that may be similar and whether we might create redundancy or confusion. Another issue can be whether the change sets us up to have further erosion of the tax base as similar credits are added in the future to level the benefits between groups.

While an amendment may appear to provide an obvious benefit, several fail as the relevant committee can be the better place to consider policy details.

Other meetings during the week included Chief Justice Luckert, who took time to reach out and meet with me on issues facing the judicial system. On Friday, the governor’s tax council met. Members reviewed information similar to what we have received in the legislature. It was helpful to hear the questions they asked to think about our next steps in the tax committee during the last weeks of the general session.

The next word of the week is “empathy”. How do we exercise empathy? Is it different based on whether I agree with someone? Again, thanks for the thoughts you have shared on previous words, and I look forward to hearing more from you.

Thank you for the opportunity to represent you in Topeka. My office phone is (785) 296-7696 and e-mail is steven.johnson@house.ks.gov.

Have a great week!