Committee work continued to be at the forefront of activity in the Kansas House. Several issues are now working their way out of committees for consideration on the House floor.

The governor’s KPERS plan was voted out of the pension committee. There will be amendments to allow a vote on the re-amortization issue which I would expect to be stripped from the bill. The additional $268 million payment I hope stays in the bill and passes out of the House.

The education committee had several hearings including HB 2601 about possible vaccination options for parents. This bill had the most people testify and attend the hearing of any bill in my committees so far this year. Concerns exist about both short and long term impacts from all the vaccinations required or recommended for children to attend school or be in a child care facility. There are strong opinions and arguments on both sides of the issue. This forum was a start of the discussion.

The appropriations committee heard budgets from several agencies. We are slogging through the details of assembling the House budget position. We also heard bills relating to plugging abandoned oil wells and combining two funds that help to cover the cost associated.

In the tax committee, we voted a few bills out of the committee. Some of the smaller bills are ready to continue to the floor for debate. Those with larger fiscal notes we will hold until we determine our overall priority for which tax issues we can advance given the revenue impact.

New issues we heard for the week included options to address the current point where social security income becomes taxable.

We also discussed internet sales tax collection options. The committee had questions for the Department of Revenue regarding our need to establish a minimum threshold. This threshold is meant to protect small sellers from having to go through the hurdle of collecting sales tax.

The threshold to begin collection established by South Dakota and most other states so far is for sales above $100,000 in the state. The attorney general and secretary of revenue each spoke to us on the issue. Most of us agreed with the attorney general that establishing a threshold leaves us in a better place from a legal risk perspective.

Our other option is continuing to operate under the department’s current directive that all sellers, even the smaller ones, need to register and remit sales taxes to Kansas.

The civil discourse planning teams continued work. We had a meeting Monday, Feb. 17.

Part of our actions include using a “word of the week” to engage not only in the legislature, but with interested citizens across the state via social media and other forums.

If you are interested, comment on what the word means to you, share the message to your contacts and let us know what words you would like us to consider.

You can keep informed though the group or me via twitter (or my facebook) @kscivility or @johnsonforkansas.

The first word announced Monday is “vision”. We look forward to hearing your thoughts!

Thank you for e-mails and calls letting me know your position. I am very fortunate to have a great staff person, Jan Kiehl, this year who helps me to know who calls and organizes the feedback well by issue.

Please continue to reach out to us at (785) 296-7696 or steven.johnson@house.ks.gov.

Have a great week!