By Tim Carpenter
Tribune News Service
TOPEKA — Walking across the marble floor of the Capitol rotunda generated a lonely echo.
No legislators scurried through the halls or prepared for debate on issues of the day.
There were no lobbyists to wine and dine lawmakers.
Nobody sat in the House or Senate galleries to keep an eye on the sausage-making of state government.
The building remained locked to visitors.
The Kansas Legislature was scheduled to return Monday to work on final details of the new state budget and tie up a few loose ends. If there was sufficient momentum, perhaps there could have been votes on Medicaid expansion or a constitutional amendment on abortion.
In a building where finger-pointing sometimes rises to an art form, the absence of 165 legislators from the Capitol could justifiably be blamed on the COVID-19 pandemic.
House Speaker Ron Ryckman, an Olathe Republican, said legislators had all sorts of answers when quizzed about returning to Topeka.
“It’s all over the board,” Ryckman said. “We have a lot of folks in rural parts of the state that are anxious to come back.”
Kansas has reported 3,200 positive tests for COVID-19 and nearly 120 fatalities. Three-fourths of deaths have been in Johnson and Wyandotte counties.
The Legislative Coordinating Council, a bipartisan group of legislative leaders, plans to decide by May 6 whether to reconvene. The decision to skip Monday’s relaunch of the Legislature reflected the reality that 65% of legislators are 60 years of age or older, which makes them especially vulnerable to coronavirus.
Senate President Susan Wagle, R-Wichita, said there was high anxiety among some legislators about executive orders issued by Gov. Laura Kelly. There has been concern about her stay-at-home order and the order designed to restrict religious gatherings.
“The No. 1 issue I’m hearing from my colleagues, clearly we have a statute that is outdated and doesn’t address our current concerns in this emergency,” Wagle said.
She said time had come to safely begin transitioning workers back to their jobs and to allow non-essential businesses to reopen. An unprecedented number have been thrown out of work, with more than 190,000 filing initial claims for unemployment during the crisis.
Kelly is expected to outline by mid-week her revision of emergency actions ahead of implementation May 4. There are questions about whether the governor could nimbly allow resumption of business activity without triggering a fresh round of COVID-19 infection.
“It will be far more complex than merely flipping a switch or rescinding an executive order,” the governor said.
Kelly said the state had flattened the infection curve and prevented hospitals from being overrun with coronavirus patients. The transition to phase one of the reopening will require robust testing and efficient contact tracing of people, she said.
Outbreaks such as those in counties with large meatpacking plants will continue to be an issue, she said.
In the absence of statewide orders, cities and counties assume more authority to manage the emergency locally.
Lee Norman, secretary at the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, said the intention would be to create a light at the end of the tunnel for Kansans rather than set them up to be struck by the engine of the virus.
Resumption of normal activities may be disrupted with infection flareups, he said.
“We are quite certain, like other pandemics, there will be a second wave into the fall and winter,” Norman said.
If the Republican-led Legislature declines to return until next January, Kelly would be responsible for managing a projected $1.3 billion reduction in state revenue through June 2021. The tax-collection wounds are tied to closure of much of the economy for weeks.
“I could, I suppose, call a special session, but I have no intention of doing that,” the Democratic governor said.
She said the state had to identify a strategy for managing cash flow. No specific agencies have been earmarked for reductions nor have areas of state government been granted immunity from reductions.
Core services of state government will be a priority, she said.
“When I talk about critical services, I’m including education,” she said. “We will do everything in our power to avoid making cuts to essential services.”
A collection of three emergency funding bills approved by the federal government is expected to deliver $1.25 billion to Kansas government, but the money cannot be used to fill budget holes unrelated to coronavirus.
Here’s a sample of that pie: $105 million for colleges and universities, $84 million for K-12 schools, and $30 million for child care assistance. About $215 million has been set aside for local units of government.
Kelly said the federal government should adopt a fourth emergency spending bill to provide states with direct, flexible financial aid to cover loss of tax revenue.
“If we want to protect all the progress we’ve made in recent years in our schools, in our corrections systems, in our infrastructure and more, then Kansas will need help to make it through this,” she said.
Before adjourning, the Legislature set aside $65 million for COVID-19 emergency relief. Oversight Sen. Rick Billinger, R-Goodland, said the Legislature should have a formal role in authorizing expenditures of the $1.25 billion.
The basic budget bill adopted by legislators granted Kelly the ability to accept federal funding not anticipated when the bill was approved in March.
“I just think that we should have oversight on the money,” Billinger said. “I don’t think anyone anticipated when we did the budget that we’d be getting these types of funds.”
The Kansas Department of Labor has struggled with a series of computer problems that held up unemployment benefits to approximately 190,000 new claimants. In addition to the flood of claims, the agency must alter IT systems to grant benefits to self-employed people, extend financial support to 26 weeks and distribute a supplemental federal payment of $600 a week to the jobless.
Rep. Steven Johnson, R-Assaria, said the state was fortunate to have entered this calamity with $928 million in the unemployment trust fund.
Kris Van Meteren, a former executive director of the Kansas Republican Party, said Kelly should have dealt with the COVID-19 challenges in the manner of South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, who asked people to voluntarily cooperate with social distancing rather than issue a stay-at-home order.
“In other words, I urged Kansas leaders to lead the people, rather than to rule them,” Van Meteren said in a letter sent to the entire Legislature. “Governor Kelly, rather than exercising that kind of leadership and appealing to the best in Kansans to step up and help avert a public health crisis, reflexively reached for the levers of power you handed her.”
He said she used that authority to issue orders that were “needlessly oppressive, hypocritical, often conflicting, unfair, economically catastrophic, unconstitutional, and — worst of all — devastating to the lives, livelihoods and futures of your constituents.”