Greetings,

Legislative Update #6, February 16, 2009

Busy Week Ahead for Legislators

With the rescission bill now behind the legislature and before the Governor, legislators will now eye the work that needs to be done on the 2010 budget.  The 2009 rescission budget bill essentially added back (or doubled) those cuts to K-12 education that were in the original Senate bill.  The compromise came out of the Conference Committee between the House and Senate negotiators.  Advantage to the conservative House members.  Now you might say, wasn't it the conservative Senators who helped the democrats get a better bill for education, and you would be right.  The fun is only just begun.  The Governor does have line item veto on appropriation bills such as this.  The federal stimulus bill could have bearing on how the process moves forward from here.  But, the biggest impact on how the 2010 budget will be crafted will be projected revenues.

The KS AFL-CIO testified on a bill that would have taken away the gains made in some misclassification legislation passed just a few years ago.  This was the law that allowed the Department of Revenue and the Department of Labor to communicate regarding misclassification of employees as contractors to elude payments of certain requirements like workers compensation and unemployment benefits.  Intentionally wrongly classifying employees as contractors or sub-contractors is exploitive.  The KS AFL-CIO opposed the bill.  The bill is still in committee.

On Wednesday legislators will spend full days out on the floor debating bills and working towards the traditional "Turnaround Day".  Many issues and bills are still very much alive through an exempt status procedure.  A number of committees also have the exempt status for all of their work.

This week the Senate Commerce Committee will take on the state minimum wage bill, SB 160.  The same committee held a hearing on the bill this past week and the Kansas AFL-CIO, RTW (Raise the Wage) Kansas, the Kansas Action Network (KAN), and the Wichita Huthchinson Labor Fed testified on the bill.  They will work the bill and make some revisions, then decide whether to pass it out of committee.  We want it to move forward and put our state minimum wage more in-line with the federal minimum wage.  An interim study has been floated, but this is nothing short of an insult to those Kansans earning less than the federal minimum wage.  About 20,000 Kansans!

A number of bills have been introduced including a good Worker's Compensation bill by the Kansas Coalition for Workplace Safety (KCWS) that focuses on increasing the caps on benefits, SB 258.  There is a Prevailing Wage bill that has been introduced (HB 2277), a whistleblower bill and a number of other bills that we are tracking.  Watch for more details later.

In that 2010 budget is of course funding of state agencies and education. Our brothers and sisters in state government are of course intensely watching the budget process unfold.  The state must make good on their commitment of funding their obligations.  Death and disability, Retirement and Healthcare contributions are big items of concern as well as pay. 

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