The Topeka Capital-Journal, Sept. 22
Lawmakers should act on Municipal Court recommendations
Bonds, fees and fines assessed to people facing criminal charges are intended to protect the public, but some fees do not serve the public interest, according to a committee studying fee use in Kansas municipal courts.
The committee, formed at the direction of the Kansas Supreme Court, recently recommended a series of changes to municipal courts in Kansas, and its carefully constructed recommendations deserve consideration.
For example, the current bond system uses a one-size-fits-all approach to assign bond amounts based upon the charges. Although intended to ensure people charged with very serious crimes have a harder time getting released from jail, the traditional bond schedule does not take into account access to financial resources.
Someone with plenty of income facing serious charges might have an easy time making their bail, while someone facing a comparatively minor charge might languish in jail. Potentially dangerous defendants with money can be out on bail with limited monitoring. Blacks, Latinos and Native Americans are twice as likely as whites to end up stuck in jail unable to pay.
Even if someone is later found innocent or charges are dismissed, pretrial jail time can cost people jobs, homes or child custody, putting additional burdens on the working poor. Even short sentences can cut the defendant’s ties to the community, making them more likely to commit future crimes.
The additional jail time is also a burden on taxpayers. The U.S. Department of Justice reports 60 percent of people in jail across the United States have not yet been to trial, and 90 percent of them are there because they’re unable to pay bail, costing taxpayers an estimated $14 billion annually.
The committee wisely recommended judges take financial resources into account when assigning bond.
After trial, fines and fees can be similarly problematic for people unable to afford them. The committee again recommended taking income into account, and increasing credit for community service to satisfy court imposed sanctions.
Some of the committee’s recommendations may require changes in state or local laws. Lawmakers should act quickly to adopt the committee’s recommendations. Reforming our municipal court’s approach to bonds, fees and fines is a valuable step toward making our justice system a more equitable and effective safeguard of the public.
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Lawrence Journal-World, Sept. 23
Increase funding for higher ed
The Kansas Board of Regents is right to seek significant funding increases for the University of Kansas and the state’s other regents universities, but questions will need to be answered before the increases win legislative approval.
Foremost, the regents will have to justify a 15 percent pay increase for Regents President and CEO Blake Flanders. Second, it needs to be clarified how the funding increases, if awarded, will affect KU’s plan to cut $20 million from its operating budget this year and next.
On Thursday, the Board of Regents approved an $85 million funding increase over the next two years in its budget proposal that will go to the Legislature. The funds requested by the Regents are restoration for dollars the Legislature cut in 2009.
For the state universities, the request includes $50 million for fiscal year 2020, which begins in July, and an additional $35 million for the fiscal year 2021.
“Our hope is that this will happen,” said KU Chancellor Douglas Girod. If the request is approved, KU is expected to receive about $33 million across all its campuses.
The state of Kansas collected $300 million more in tax revenue than budgeted during the last fiscal year and is up another $17 million through two months this year. Certainly, after years of higher education cuts driven by tax funding shortfalls, it’s appropriate for the Legislature to restore some of that funding to the state’s colleges and universities.
The state’s current funding of state universities is about $588 million in state general funds out of a total state general fund budget of $7 billion, according to figures provided by the Regents.
Girod didn’t provide specifics on how the additional state funding might affect plans to cut $20 million from KU’s budget this year and next. The cuts have been a source of friction amid faculty and staff. Girod did say that “the dollars would help the university take care of their people and the challenges they have been facing.”
The Regents took care of Flanders by awarding him a $30,000 pay raise from $200,000 to $230,000. Regents said the increase was necessary to bring Flanders in line with his peers around the country. Still, the pay increase runs the risk of becoming an issue with legislators and, worse, sends the wrong message to KU faculty and staff facing wage stagnation and job losses. If KU will clarify how the state funds will affect the planned cuts, that could go a long way to tempering the CEO pay hike.
Overall, the Board of Regents’ budget proposal is appropriate. We hope the Legislature, which will undergo a makeover in the November elections, will recognize the need to support it and restore to higher education some of the significant funding cuts the state’s colleges and universities have endured the past decade.
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The Iola Register, Sept. 19
AG Schmidt working in league to undo health care act
In their efforts to prove they can outfox the Affordable Care Act, 20 Republican state attorneys general are working to prove its unconstitutionality and in the process eliminate valuable protections for U.S. consumers. Top of the list is the provision that insurance companies must provide coverage to those with pre-existing conditions such as diabetes, cancer or heart disease.
In Kansas, about 504,000 of our non-elderly would be regarded as having pre-existing conditions, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Denying these people health insurance “gives me pause,” admitted Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt who has joined the federal lawsuit on behalf of Kansas.
But not enough, obviously, to be deterred.
At essence is the health care act’s mandate that U.S. citizens carry health insurance or else pay a fine on their tax returns. Last year, however, Congress repealed the penalty when it reworked the tax bill, which, Schmidt maintains, should make Obamacare void. Without teeth, it’s unenforceable.
Other provisions in jeopardy if the AGs - all Republican - are successful are those that prevent health insurance companies from charging women and those chronically ill higher rates.
With Obamacare, the playing field was leveled. No matter your gender or health, your insurance premiums were the same. The only modifying risk factor acceptable for charging higher rates was for tobacco-users, a voluntary habit that can have unhealthy - and costly - consequences.
SCHMIDT says not to worry. That if the attorneys general prevail and eliminate the Affordable Care Act, he’s certain Congress will revisit health care quickly and make amends.
That’s no comfort at all.
WHEN SCHMIDT and his cohorts discovered they could prove the health insurance plan was on shaky ground they went for the jugular, using a veil of legalese.
This is why people distrust government.
It’s not by the people, for the people.
It’s by the cunning, for the select few.
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