Kansas Reflector podcast: Gov. Laura Kelly (05/19/2025)

6:14PM May 15, 2025

Speakers:

Tim Carpenter

Gov. Kelly

Keywords:

Kansas Reflector Podcast

Laura Kelly

2025 legislative session

income tax reduction

property taxes

flat tax

Kansas budget

early childhood reforms

mail-in ballot grace period

Kansas Supreme Court

water policy

public school finance formula

Trump administration impact

Medicaid funding.

welcome to the Kansas reflector Podcast. I'm Tim carpenter. Governor Laura Kelly, a Topeka Democrat, well into her second term as the state's chief executive, is taking time out of her busy day to talk about ramifications of the 2025 legislative session, what was done, what wasn't, from her perspective, and delve into how she would like to shape her final 20 months of her gubernatorial career. My Time flies, Governor. I recall when you were a state senator and decided to jump into the race all those years ago. So a lot has happened since then. Do you think it's more like a marathon, or is it more like a speed race that just sometimes even speeds up more? It's both.

It is a marathon that includes many, many sprints. So you know, we're coming towards the end of the marathon, but I expect that there will be several morereally fast relays going on before we get there.

Yeah. Kansas isn't through with you yet. You got 19 or 20 months or something like that.

Nor am I finished.

Yeah.

I still have some things I want to get done.

I hear you. So in 2024 the legislature conducted a special session and adopted a 1.3 billion, I think, three year income tax reduction bill. Many, many politicians talked about, at that time about making property taxes the priority in 2025 the legislature dabbled, but it wasn't transformational in 2025 why not? Well, for one thing, I'd like to clarify, it'd be very difficult, quite honestly, for the state to do anything transformational on property taxes.

We could have done more. I wanted to do more the year before, you know, on property taxes, but instead, the legislature wanted to go for some income taxes.

That wasn't enough. They came back and did even more. And unfortunately, I think what we've been left with is essentially a flat tax. I mean, it ultimately will result in that, and that's the kiss of death for the Kansas budget and the public services that we've been providing. I think what they did, it won't be as fast or as dramatic as the impact of the Brownback tax experiment, but ultimately have the same effect.

Could that have effect? So when you're talking about a flat tax, is the the 2025, legislature, instead of maybe taking some of the state cash reserves, we'll say $250 million and buying down the statewide mill levy for property tax for schools, just just pay that portion from the state general fund, they just continue to let that property tax be applied to homeowners statewide. That could have been something they could have done that would have reduced property taxes, not lowered taxation, but would have reduced property taxes, but they didn't do that well again.

You know, I hate to be such a wonk, but you don't reduce property taxes on one time money. You know, that's something I have fought against for a very long time, and that's what, you know, what you're proposing would have done.

So I've got a bad idea here?

You've got a really bad idea. You're not the only one who's had that bad idea. So there were other ways that they could have done it, and one would they would have had to give up the whole idea of this flat tax, and then they could have somewhat reduced property taxes for the people the state of Kansas. And there are other ways that we could have looked to encourage our local units of government to hold the line on property taxes.

And what you're talking about the flat tax again, is they passed a bill that says state revenue over a certain amount is supposed to be earmarked for reducing the corporate and individual income tax rates, and they want to drive it down to 4% and that would get you the flat tax, but it also seals away that revenue for Income tax cuts and not for some other purpose?

Yeah, I think the legislature, those who are here now and will be here in the future, will come to regret what they have done, because in addition to devastating the state budget and therefore ability to provide fundamental, basic services to folks like schools and roads, they're also going to tie their own hands, you know, that's, that's what we tried to remind them, is that, you know, the legislature is the appropriator. You know, they're the ones, but they have stripped their ability to make any difference in, you know, the revenues coming in for them to be able to then appropriate for the various services. So, you know, it'll come back to bite them. Hopefully, you know they will see that and come back soon and perhaps reverse their course. You know, we did that with the Brownback tax experiment. If you remember, you know that went into effect in 2012 and 2013 and it was the 2017 legislature that essentially repealed, on a bipartisan way, repealed the Brownback tax experiment and put Kansas back on the path to prosperity.

Over Brownback's veto.

Yes, we did.

It was a five year train wreck, and then it cratered the budget and caused all kinds of problems, and he still didn't want to let go of it.

That's correct, but fortunately, we were able to override that veto.

You can do clever math and make it look say whatever you want about the state budget. I've heard a couple of times Republican leadership in the House and Senate suggest that they're the fiscal conservatives and that they put forward a budget and were more thrifty in the final analysis than you were. And I'm not sure if that's true or not.

Well, there's also to play ways to play with numbers, and I think that's essentially what happened. You know, I presented to them a balanced budget that funded our central services. And also, again, reduced debt in any investments that we made in capital were used with one time money. And I think what happened with the final budget is that a lot of the things that we were paying for with cash up front, they used bonding and put us further into debt. So they can say they spent less money. But in the reality, the reality is they spent as much, if not more.

Bonding is like a credit card. You're buying now and paying later — you're paying more.

That's exactly right. And you know, we have worked so hard over the past six, seven years to get us out of debt. In addition to not being able to fund our roads and bridges and schools after the Brownback tax experiment, we also went seriously into debt. We were borrowing from our KPERS system, the retirement system. We were borrowing from the pool money investment board, you know, name a fund, and we robbed it in order to pay our bills. In the time that I've been governor, you know, we have closed the "Bank of KDOT." We were no longer using highway money for to pay for mental health services, for instance.

Keep the lights on state government.

exactly and so, you know, we did all of that. We used a lot of the federal money that came in to pay down debt so that we wouldn't have to be continue to pay that off in the future years. And then we've done a lot of capital investment. You'll look at the look at the capital complex itself. You know, we have two new, very large, beautiful buildings that have gone up the Health and Environment lab and then the docking State Office Building, which will open soon, you know. And those are paid with cash, you know, that we we got in during COVID from the feds. Instead of spending that, you know, in ways that would just set up more expenses as we go forward, we invested that very wisely, and have really left something vital for the state.

Governor Kelly, I wanted you to address the Early Childhood reforms. What we have is a consolidation of some of the services I believe, that are directed to for the benefit of early, young kids in Kansas. And so that's going to come to pass here. So you want to touch on that?

Well, I'm really excited about the fact that we were finally able to get this done. There's something I've been working on for a very long time. You know, I originally wanted this to be a cabinet level position because I believe that early childhood education is fundamental, a fundamental service that the state ought to be providing, and fundamental to the future of our state and the economy of our state. So I wanted it that high. Wasn't able to get that. But what I what we did get was pulling all of the programs that provide something towards our early childhood system under one umbrella, so that it can be much more efficient. You know, we will, we will save money and other resources by putting it all under this one umbrella, and we'll be able to provide much better services. You know, become a one stop shop for our families, for providers and for our businesses. So, you know, it's, it's finally done. I know there were some issues and concerns about it. And, you know,

It's not necessarily growing government. It's a consolidation of.

Absolutely no. If anything, it is streamlining government. I mean, that's, you know, it in no way, whether we had made it a cabinet position or as it is, a department or its own independent office, it will streamline government, and it will, if we don't save any money, we will be at least investing that money in ways that make a difference, rather than just for it away.

I wanted to ask you about a couple of election kind of related issues. One is that Kansas is getting rid of the three day grace period, right? Yes, and that is the law that said if your mail in ballot was postmarked on election day, it had three days to meander through the US Postal Service to election clerk's offices and it would still be counted. We're not going to do that anymore. Is that a bad idea?

It's a very bad idea, you know, and it's not just whenever your ballot is mailed, you know, on or before election day. You've got three days afterwards to get it in. And I was in the Senate, when we passed that it was overwhelming support, bipartisan support for this, because what had happened is the Postal Service had started to close down their sorting centers, like the one here in Topeka, Kansas. So instead of mail that you put in the post box downtown Topeka going to North Topeka to be sorted and then distributed. It now goes to Kansas City. And by virtue of that, it takes longer for things to get to people's mailboxes. And you know, it was interesting, because in 2017 when we passed that law, we had just come off the 2016 election, and so a lot of us as candidates were suffering during our campaign because candidates really set it up so that your mail drops on Tuesday or your mail drops on Thursday, with the craziness at the post office that wasn't happening. And so we all knew as candidates what a problem it was and how unreliable the post office was in getting that in. And that is why we changed that law to allow that three day grace period just because the post office was not delivering on time. The fact that we and things haven't gotten any better with the post office, in case people haven't noticed,

It got worse, for sure.

Yeah, so I mean, it's going to be incumbent upon citizens to just make sure they get that ballot in the mail very early, or just take it to the election office.

I'm curious what you think about the proposed Kansas constitutional amendment to go from a merit selection process of appointing members of the Kansas Supreme Court, in which the governors have a lot of authority, to a system in which candidates run for those appointments as if it was just an election for city council, state legislature or some other statewide office. And I think you're opening a door to crazy campaigns for the Kansas Supreme Court.

I don't disagree. I mean, I think all we need to do is take a good look at Wisconsin over the past few years. Now, I think had two major races that have brought in hundreds of millions of dollars, many, many of those dollars coming in from out of state influence groups. You know, I don't think Kansans want to go that way, and I think they will speak loudly in August of 2026 just as they did in August of 2022 when the legislature tried to essentially eliminate reproductive rights in the state of Kansas.

Another interesting law that came about restricts Your ability to fill vacancies for jobs, and this is an odd assortment of jobs. They chose state treasurer, I believe, state insurance commissioner, and the United States Senate. So that's really four jobs. We got two US senators. Why? Why those jobs? Why was the change made do you figure?

I think, I think they were the only ones they could do. I mean, whether they were in the Constitution or so, I honestly don't know exactly why it was just those, but they did as many as they possibly could with the system that they set up, and, you know, I think I'm not surprised that they wanted to change the selection process. I mean, Kansas has been a little bit unique, not the only state, but one of few states that would allow the governor to appoint somebody to fill a vacancy in the US Senate, or, you know, in the insurance commissioner's office with somebody from a party different than the outgoing incumbent.

Which you, in fact, did. There was a vacancy in state treasurer's office, I believe, and you Republican resigned, and you appointed Democrat,

Yes.

I just thought in my life, that's just the way it is.

Well, it has been. I mean, you know, if you remember when Governor Sebelius was in office, you know, there were several, you know, the Attorney General's Office, the Attorney General's office, so there, you know that has happened, the fact that they that the Legislature wanted to change that to have more control ensure that a Republican got into those positions doesn't surprise me.

Correct me, if I am wrong, the legislature is going to create a three person list and offer that to the governor?

No. Well,

How's that going to work?

Yeah. Well, you know, and that actually could be okay if it weren't for the convoluted way they get to that list. And I think that's what they've done. I mean, if they they had set up something sort of like we do right now for appellate court judges and for Supreme Court justices, where a nominating committee, you know, selects people and then sends them on to the governor. The governor then chooses and then there's Senate confirmation that would make that would make some sense. And that's how other states do it, putting the way that they have done it. And again, it's so convoluted I can't really explain it, but I just know it's — I think they will come to regret the fact that they have done this. It seemed like a good idea at the time when, when they actually have to implement this? I think they're going to see the error of their ways.

I have a theory, Governor, when you have a super majority, doesn't matter if it's a super majority in the House, incentive Democrats, super majority of Republicans in the legislature, that it makes people lazy about writing bills, and you're going to end up with bad legislation. There was one some years ago, decade ago. So they passed some used car sales thing, and it was called the clunker bill, because the first thing they had to do, coming back to the next session, was to fix that, because it screwed up the way people sold used cars. So does it make you know this? This convoluted process makes me wonder if they the Republicans, have maybe worked with Democrats and collaborated, that the law would have essentially done the same thing, but been better.

Well, I always think collaboration leads to better results. You know, and I think I we do see that across the country that, you know, when you have one party so completely, totally in control, you know, you tend to get more extreme out of the mainstream, certainly not middle of the road legislation that that goes forward. You know, I think that this is the same thing that we're seeing now in Kansas, that because the they were able to increase their super majority. I mean, now we got a super duper majority, yeah, and a lot of a lot of the people who would occasionally come across and sustain a veto are no longer in the legislature. So we have people who you just sort of go along with the leadership, and you know, it's almost guaranteed. Not to mention the way that they're approaching this. I mean, the idea, instead of taking each thing, you know, V type, veto by veto to determine whether you're going to sustain or override, they just packaged it all up. I think they did 15 at one point or 18. Yeah, yeah.

The Senate just did a whole -- of vetoes at the same time.

That's - that's a really cynical, awful way to approach things.

To me, they could have probably had the same votes. It would have taken a couple of hours, but maybe allow people to vote individually on those overrides, rather than as one up or down package. It's the same sin as bundling six bills together into one during the legislative session. Yeah,

Maybe, maybe even worse. But you know, it is what it is. It's what we're dealing with now. And I hoping that, you know, as we go forward, and you know, people are thinking about what they want in their state government, in their you know, both in the executive branch and legislative branch that they make their voices known.

There's going to be, I don't know that it's actually a task force, but Kansas, due to legislative action and your advocacy, is going to take a more coordinated approach to water policy. And can you just touch on what is going to happen, and do you think the prospects are good or having better water policy?

Well, I think absolutely they're, they're better. I mean, the one thing I really wanted to come out of this past legislative session regarding water was the creation of this task force. You know, I've said for a long time that I wanted to have in place, at least a plan going forward to address the water issue, knowing that we couldn't resolve it in the amount of time that I've got left in office. And so the fact that the task force is in place and that it's got its mission, and I think there are some very serious people on there who will work towards that mission means that at some point in the not very distant future, I think that Kansas will have in place a comprehensive, thoughtful, long range plan with dedicated funding so that we address our water issues much like we have addressed our infrastructure, our transportation issues for decades. It's been very effective in transportation because, you know, like water transportation is not something you can just one and done. You know, okay, this year we'll do this. It takes a lot of planning. You know, it takes time to implement the kinds of things that you projects that get developed and so very expensive, so you have to pace that the expenses out over a period of time. I think that's what I'm hoping this task force will come up with is both a long range plan so that we we can guarantee water security for generations to come, and that we have the funding to Ensure implementation without water.

Rural Kansas will vaporize.

Without water, there would be no Kansas. We do talk a lot about western Kansas and dry and you know, certainly our agricultural industry relies upon that, and therefore all of those communities do. But you know, the people in the East can't rest easy, either. They're totally dependent upon those reservoirs, and it's expensive to maintain reservoirs.

It's an urban, rural thing. You would think this would be one policy where Republicans and Democrats are to really get on board, and it's taken years to advance to this point.

I think partly that is, Tim, that nobody has ever really put this much into it. You know, I, I've been in a unique position here in my second term as governor. You know, there have been other water plans, good water plans developed, never funded. I'm in, I'm in a position to get people together to create a really solid, valid water plan that goes forward. It's extremely controversial, and it's going to be tough to do, and you have to invest a lot of political capital. I've got that political capital, and I'm more than willing to invest it. I have been investing it because I'm never going to run for anything else. Unlike other governors I am out of here.

You're not going to run for president or something?

I am not not.

You're declaring that right now.

Or anything else. And so I can take all the political capital they have and invest it in this. And I can't think of anything more important to do for the people of Kansas than to ensure that they've got water clean and abundant for generations.

There's a legislative committee that's meeting this summer, and they're talking about the ways in which the public school K 12 finance formula can be rewritten, and it's billions of dollars for our public schools across the state. New formula, I think, goes into a would go into effect in the summer of 2027. Do you think they'll and that would allow the legislature to await the November 2026 election for governor. So we will have, could have a new governor who decides this stuff, Republican or Democrat? We'll find out. But what would you like to see from the legislature in terms of finance formula?

Well, obviously, what I would really like is for them to tweak around the edges of what we've already got. You know, it's, it's not like this formula was just established last week and needs to be redone. You know, this, this is a formula that has really been decades in the making, over time, and has been court tested and, all sorts of other things. It works for Kansas. And are there things that could be better could be done differently? I'm sure that there are, and I would hope that the legislature, instead of throwing the entire baby out with the bath water, really takes a very close look at what works and leave that in place, and then go look at the things that perhaps could be done, better, more effectively, more efficiently, and work on those. You know, and I would hope also that that those people who are working on this particular formula, I would hope that, you know, deep down, what they're really trying to do is to make our public school system the best in the country, not looking for ways to undermine it and divert funds from that to private schools, the private system, right?

Yeah, in the couple minutes we have left, Governor, I wonder if you would just touch on President Trump has been in office for 100 plus days. He's made a lot of changes. There's universities in Kansas with faculty have lost research grants. I think there's funding to the state that has been severed. You're the leader of the Democratic Governors Association. I know you've spoken out on this, but you want to just take a minute and talk about the impact of the Trump administration on Kansas.

Well, here I am, and in my role as chair of the Democratic governors, we're working with that organization and my colleagues across the country to address the issues where we fundamentally disagree with what the administration is proposing. You know, I've already done it with some of the grants, whether it's been the University Grants we've spoken out on that we just had to lay off 56 people at the Kansas Department Health environment because grant funding was, was withdrawn. I mean, not even just okay, we're going to end this in September. It was, we were told on, you know, a Friday that it was over as of the Thursday before. So those kinds of things we are really pushing back on Medicaid expense or Medicaid funding is something that we were taking very public stance and working very hard with our congressional delegations and others to ensure that Congress does not make those kinds of drastic cuts to a program that is extraordinarily important, not only to Some citizens of the state of Kansas, but to the state itself. I mean, it would create economic havoc if they were to withdraw Medicaid funding. So we're approaching it that way. We're also, you know, if there are things that the administration proposes or wants to do that we can make work in our states. We'll work with that administration to do that. You know, sort of approaching this the same way I did the first time around. Remember that I was governor when COVID hit, and it was during the Trump administration, and

You went and hung out with President Trump.

I did, I did have a meeting with the President. And quite honestly, it worked. You know, we were having trouble getting PPE and vaccines and, you know, other things that we absolutely had to have. And sort of, we were competing with the big states, New York and California and Florida, Illinois and so, yeah, we went in and put a fleet there to please pay attention to states like Kansas. And it worked. And I will continue to do that, you know, wherever I find that, by using my voice, using my influence, I can make things better for Kansans. I'll do that where I think there are things being proposed that are not in the best interest of Kansans. I will stand up and stand up strong.

Governor Laura Kelly, I think we're going to leave it there. I want to thank you for taking the time out of your schedule to come talk to really you're talking to Kansans about the state and the future of so I want to thank you for taking the time.

I appreciate the opportunity, Tim.

Thanks and to the listeners. I'm Tim Carpenter, thanks for listening.