Friends:  Check out the pictures from the legislative session.

The Senate stayed until 2:30 last night (oops, this morning), and guess what happens when legislators and staff are working 15-20 hours a day for 11 days with one day off?  The wrong conference report is signed!  The Senate stayed late because some Senators had to leave today for something more important, who knows.  In any case, there was a huge mixup and they had to adjourn, get it fixed, and come back this morning.

• This morning on “Inside Kansas Politics” with myself and Rep. Rob Boyer, if you listened in, you certainly had a treat.  Reps. Jeff Jack, Josh Svaty, and Don Hill joined us to share how the education and transportation plans discussed below affect their districts.  Each is in their freshman term, and they are talented, well-spoken, and intelligent representatives of their districts.  It was a great conversation, with NONE of the technical difficulties we experienced last week – thank you for your patience and faithfulness to the program.  The past two weeks have certainly been a LIVE show on Kansas politics!

Last night I mentioned a “funny money” plan the Senate hatched.  After further inspection, and three hours of sleep, I have reconsidered.  It is stolen money.  If you would give up any improvements to 87^th Street (which is NOT in jeopardy, I’m just using it as an example we can all identify with), or K-7, for ten years in exchange for a small penance for schools, then you could vote for this.  The $82 million plan moved funds from the highway program and left a hole in the 2006 budget.  The money we would get from this would not solve problems, and we would just be back next year needing more money for schools because we didn’t fix the problem right in the first place.  Oh, by the way, the school boards, teachers, and most school districts opposed it.

OK, so the plan passed the Senate because they were too cowardly to pass real funding.  It came to the House this afternoon, and we just finished debating it.  You can sense my disgust because people who NEVER vote for schools were touting this as the greatest education funding plan ever devised.  I campaigned against smoke-and-mirrors budgeting and program funding.  Also, I promised to support increases in education funding.  The transportation raiding plan failed on a vote of 75-41.  I voted NO.

Our coalition maintained its numbers and proved that a bipartisan group working together can bring legitimate funding for schools.  However, this is not Nebraska.  We have two chambers…  The issue this summer will certainly be funding for schools – those who voted for real plans and those who didn’t.

The Senate just passed the Omnibus budget bill, the bill that must pass before we adjourn.  We will gather together in our caucuses (Republicans and Democrats meet in separate areas) and discuss the budget.  The budget is not all that controversial this year.  The major change I would make is to add more to serve the waiting lists for the Department of Aging and those with disabilities, to help them continue to be productive members of our community.

It is likely the budget will pass and that a motion to adjourn will follow.  I intend to oppose that motion because I want to keep trying for our schools (the young optimist in me?  OK, sarcastic, but still optimistic).  The legislative session is Constitutionally allotted 90 days.  Today is day 89, Monday could be day 90.  I refuse to believe the Senate wants pink slips for teachers, increased class sizes, and cuts in critical programs.

More on the final wrap-up later…

Your faithful (and worn out) Representative,

Stephanie Sharp