TOPEKA — Kansas tax hawks shrieked over the state’s dead-center ranking of its business climate.

But the ranking was better than the same survey in 2011 conducted by the nonpartisan Tax Foundationresearch organization in Washington, D.C. The 2012 survey was released Jan. 26.

The Tax Foundation, formed in 1937 to help track federal spending during the New Deal of the Great Depression era, has since become a major advocate of tax education for the public.

“One spot, to 25th place?” asked Gov. Sam Brownback, who said Friday he had not read the national survey. “That’s not going to move much.”

The key to boosting Kansas’ status is in cutting or eliminating taxes, but which taxes?

Brownback asked Kansas legislators last month to cut the state’s current top 6.45 percent personal income tax rate to 4.9 percent and to eliminate taxes on non-wage income paid by small business owners. Many small business owners pay taxes on their business income at personal rates and, Brownback said, the changes will spur faster business growth and more economic activity in the state.

Kansas legislators are scheduled next week to begin digging into details of that plan and a half dozen others that propose to reduce or eliminate various business and consumer taxes in 2013 and beyond.

Any such cuts could bump Kansas’ tax-friendly ranking higher, though by how much is impossible to tell now, said Mark Robyn, the Tax Foundation economist who calculated the foundation’s state-by-state 2012 State Business Tax Climate Index.

“States don’t make tax changes in a vacuum,” Robyn said. “Every tax law, in some way, changes their position compared to other states.”

Many states’ rankings changed because Illinois last year passed a raft of tax changes to deal with its budget crisis, dropping it from 28th to 44th in the Tax Foundation rankings.

Even so, Kansas’ one-step increase for 2012 “is a meaningful change,” Robyn said. “You made a slight cut in your corporate tax rate, to 7 percent from 7.6 percent, which is why your ranking rose.”

Kansas, like many other states, relies heavily on four kinds of taxes to produce the largest share of its tax revenue each year. The three biggest usually include personal income taxes, sales taxes and property taxes. Many states, including Kansas, also collect corporate income taxes, but those totals are generally smaller.

Kansas ranks near center or below other states in most of those categories, Robyn said. Even its recently improved corporate tax ranking leaves Kansas with only the 35th friendliest tax rate in that category. The state ranks 21st in taxpayer friendly income-tax policies; 32nd for sales-tax collections and 28th in property-tax treatment.

Most states with the friendliest tax policies for business development — nine of the top 10 — have been building their tax policies around eliminating one or more of the big four categories, Robyn said. Income taxes and corporate income taxes are the most frequent targets.

Many of the tax plans that Kansas legislators are working on this session call for eliminating or sharply reducing income taxes. Doing that would not guarantee Kansas a listing among the top 10, Robyn said, “but among the top 15 would be reasonable.”

Tax comparisons are more important regionally than nationally, said Ernie Goss, a Creighton University economist who conducts monthly surveys of business conditions and the economy in Kansas and other Midwestern states.

“Comparing policies in Kansas versus New York isn’t as meaningful as Kansas versus Missouri, Kansas versus Oklahoma, Kansas versus Colorado or Kansas versus Nebraska,” Goss said.

“Businesses that are looking to relocate pick the region they want to be in, then look at their choices within that region,” he said.

In Kansas, where those comparisons count most is the Johnson County suburbs of Kansas City, Mo, one of the state’s largest population centers, Goss said.

It’s easy for businesses there to move to Missouri. The Tax Foundation ranks the overall tax climate 15th best in the nation for businesses, with slightly higher personal income taxes than Kansas and significantly lower corporate, sales and property taxes.

Colorado, ranked 16th on the report also tops Kansas. Nebraska, ranked 30th and Oklahoma at 33rd both come in lower.

“Then, those differences matter,” Goss said.

Such calculations are trickier from taxpayers’ points of view, said Aaron Popelka, an executive of the Kansas Livestock Association, the state’s largest group of cattle producers.

“We don’t want any tax reductions to be made up with increases in property taxes,” Popelka said. Farm and ranch land are among livestock producers’ largest assets, and taxes on them are major business expenses.

“But we don’t want to hurt business, either,” he said.

Low cattle numbers mean that many U.S. meat-packing plants can buy 80 percent to 85 percent of the cattle they need to slaughter each day to run a profit, Popelka said. Some may close either temporarily or permanently if that continues. Drought in Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas has helped drop U.S. cattle numbers to their lowest levels since 1952, the U.S. Agriculture Department reported in January.

“We don’t want to be the reason that any plant closes in Kansas,” he said. “There would be one less buyer in the market for our cattle and prices would be lower.”

Kansas’ economic growth is lagging behind its neighbors, though tax policies aren’t the only reason, said Jeremy Hill, executive director of Wichita State University’s Center for Economic Development and Business Research.

Kansas continues to recover more slowly from the Great Recession than its neighbors partly because it fell in more slowly.

High commodity and energy prices early in the recession helped offset other economic losses. The state is more dependent on international markets for everything from commodities to aircraft, and those are now beset by political uncertainty, volatile energy prices and the European debt crises.

Tax policy is important too, “but most tax policy takes a long time to take full effect,” Hill said. “You’re talking at least a year, and in many cases, three years or longer.”

MADISON — The 2012 political fights advanced this week in Wisconsin, with new insights into campaign financing and a brewing battle over recall petitions.

HARRISBURG — Redistricting continued to be the hot topic, as politicians and political watchers have scrambled to respond to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s unprecedented rejection of the state House and Senate district maps.

JOHNSTON — Gov. Terry Branstad on Friday called for scrapping Iowa’s decades-old system of allocating money to schools on a per-pupil basis and replacing it with a system that focuses on improved results.

“I think we should get away from ‘allowable growth’ and instead make our decisions based on providing money to improve education,” Branstad told reporters after a taping of Iowa Press. “If you keep doing something the same way and you don’t get good results, it says maybe you’d better try something different.”

Steve Burgett, 64, of Des Moines, a father of two and grandfather of three, agreed that schools need to look for ways to improve, but said change isn’t as simple as some politicians make it seem.

“What I’d like to see is the money be distributed differently,” Burgett, a business consultant, told IowaPolitics.com. “I think more of it needs to go to those things that really impact our future, and that’s got to be kids more than anything else.”

In 1971, Iowa adopted its school foundation formula, which distributes school funding on a per-pupil basis. Then, in 1992, it established its system of allowable growth, in which the state sets a yearly limit on the amount school districts can increase their budgets. Money comes from state funding and property taxes.

Schools rely on funding from allowable growth to pay for everything from teacher salaries and health insurance to milk for students.

“That’s sort of the cost-of-living adjustment for schools. That’s the inflation adjustment,” said Mary Jane Cobb, executive director of the Iowa State Education Association, which represents more than 34,000 educators. “You think about what it costs to put gas in a car, what it costs for fuel in school buses. That expense alone has gone up exponentially. Rural districts are busing students farther, with more consolidation.”

But, Branstad argued, in the decades that Iowa has been fighting over allowable growth the state’s test scores have been stagnant, and other states have moved ahead of Iowa.

“We need to, as we look to the future, make sure that the money we’re investing in education is focused on those things that are going to improve education and get us better results, rather than just saying we’re going to argue over how much growth and not asking anything in return,” Branstad said.

Senate Democrats this week began moving forward with a proposal for 4 percent allowable growth for the 2013-14 school year. That would cost the state $142.6 million in fiscal 2014 and $14.6 million for “categorical” funding, which includes class-size reduction, professional development and supplemental money for teacher salaries.

Cobb said school districts need to know the allowable growth rate in advance, so they can plan, lock in tax rates, certify budgets and enter into contracts with staff.

“We’ve been living under zero percent allowable growth this year, 2 percent next year. Four percent is needed,” she said. “It’s time that we move past that and start moving into a period of growth in our schools again. Put the art program back, add that additional math teacher, reduce class sizes.”

Education groups last spring said schools have endured three years of budget cuts and predicted that no growth in school funding would lead to 1,500 teachers being laid off.

But data from the Iowa Department of Education shows the number of Iowa full-time teachers has remained steady for the past decade, despite Iowa schools experiencing their 14th consecutive year of declining student enrollment. The state had 33,916 full-time teachers in 2010-11, up slightly from the 33,878 full-time teachers in 2001-02.

Branstad said he doesn’t support the plan for 4 percent allowable growth in 2013-14. His focus is on reforming Iowa’s education system, which this year would include retaining third-graders who can’t read and requiring high school students to take an end-of-course exam before they graduate. In future years, the plan calls for changing Iowa’s teacher compensation system and lengthening the school day and the school year.

“These are going to cost some money, and I think we ought to target our resources in education to things that are going to improve student achievement, instead of just focusing on the old battle over allowable growth,” Branstad said.

House Appropriations Committee Chairman Scott Raecker, R-Urbandale, has said the governor’s plan could cost between $200 million and $300 million in fiscal 2014. But, Cobb said, the governor’s plan to reform education initially is expected to cost $25 million, and it shouldn’t prevent a decision on basic school funding.

“I don’t see one holding up the other,” Cobb said. “We don’t need to hold education funding hostage in order to get some sort of education reform plan through the Legislature.”

Burgett predicted that education reform, and especially moving Iowa to a four-tier teacher compensation system — in which pay would be based on performance instead of seniority — would be difficult.

“If it’s just based on (student) achievement, then you’re going to have to look at how the kids are when they come in to the classroom, because the teacher’s not really responsible for all of that and can’t be,” Burgett said. “It would be like the governor being responsible for the achievement of all the people in Iowa, compared to all the people in Minnesota.”

Watch a video of Branstad calling to overhaul school funding:
http://youtu.be/C8Pnz5G8TCg

Listen to Branstad media availability:
http://www.iowapolitics.com/1009/120203Branstad_media_avail.mp3

Listen to interview with Burgett:
http://www.iowapolitics.com/1009/120203Burgett_IV.mp3

In the official decision handed down Friday afternoon, the justices explained its 4-3 decision against the newly proposed state House and Senate maps last week and detailed what changes should be made for the maps to meet constitutional muster.

SPRINGFIELD — The federal tax credit that has supported wind energy for almost 20 years is set to expire at the end of 2012.

With this expiration looming, the future of the industry in Illinois — one of the top producers of wind energy in the nation — could leave the state struggling to meet its renewable energy requirements, even as the state exports more wind energy than it uses.

In 1992, Congress offered wind companies a federal tax credit,now worth 2.2 cents per kilowatt hour of electricity generated and lasts for 10 years. Illinois’ wind generators can produce as much as 2.4 million kilowatts, worth as much as $52,000 a day.

Even so, the industry is lobbying hard for its renewal; the American Renewable Energy Production Tax Credit Extension Act, a bill in the U.S. House of Representatives, would extend it for four years.

But without the credit, Borgia said, “investment isn’t attractive, new development will grind to a halt and the thousands of American manufacturing jobs the industry supports will wane.”

Only a few Illinois wind farms have long-term agreements to sell to Illinois’ major electricity providers, Ameren Illinois and Commonwealth EdisonLLC,  said Borgia.

Most of the wind electricity generated in Illinois is exported to states on the East Coast such as New York and Massachusetts to help meet their renewable energy requirements. Or they sell to the “merchant” market to any utility that needs to buy power on any given day, whether in Illinois or elsewhere. The specific amounts of those exports aren’t public information.

“Wind has proven to be a cost-effective resource, and we’re on track to grow the industry,” said Juracek.

MADISON — A Wisconsin Reporter review found 200 pages of recall petitions missing from the Government Accountability Board database of 153,000-plus pages of signatures in the recall campaign against Gov. Scott Walker.

GAB spokesman Reid Magney confirmed the gaps in the database, which was expected to be uploaded Thursday afternoon.

“At this point, I do not know why (the pages) were omitted, but it was certainly inadvertent,” Magney said in an email to Wisconsin Reporter.

The missing pages represent a small fraction of the 153,335 pages — about .13-percent.

Still, for those concerned about transparency and accuracy, 200 pages represent scores of petitions and signatures that had been unaccounted for.

Wisconsin Reporter’s computer-assisted reporting analysis used universal resource locators, or URLs, to track irregularities or gaps in the data.

The program, electronically reviewing 50 pages at a time, lasted several hours.

It found 50 pages of petitions missing from four different segments in thousands of files.

Wisconsin Reporter’s review also found other irregularities in the database — duplicate files, apparent mistyped or misnamed files and files out of sequence. None of those files, however, was incomplete.

Many of the files were marked with new time stamps Thursday afternoon, the review found.

While the GAB’s online post included missing petitions, Walker campaign supporters reportedly received a complete database last week.

“We’ve been given all of our forms,” said Ben Sparks, spokesman for the Republican Party of Wisconsin.

He said there have been a few minor glitches with the incumbent's copy of the database, including a corrupted file with 10,000 petition sheets the campaign could not access, but the matter was quickly resolved.

“So far we’re pretty pleased with the GAB taking affirmative steps to make this as fair and transparent a process as possible,” Sparks said. “Given what’s at stake, we know this is not an easy task, but the GAB has been coming forward on their end of the deal …”

The board earlier this week announced it would release the reported 1 million signatures in the Walker recall drive, as well as the 845,000 petition signatures in the recall campaign against Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch.

GAB paused Monday in releasing the Walker petitions online after concerns from domestic abuse and stalking victims that the documents provided too much personal information, putting victims at risk.

“We have concluded that the balancing test of the Public Records Law favors disclosure of the entire recall petition without redaction of information on a recall petition, even when individual signers have expressed a concern arising from prior abuse or violence committed against them by a person who is now subject to a restraining order,” wrote Kevin Kennedy, GAB director and legal counsel.

The board already had posted online the petitions in recall campaigns targeting four GOP state senators, and the petitions in last summer’s Senate recall campaigns.

Earl Glynn of KansasWatchdog.org contributed to this report.

DES MOINES — Lisa Russell doesn’t like the cameras in some Iowa cities that lead to traffic tickets of up to $200 for speeding or running red lights, but she also knows the cameras are bringing in money.

“It does feel like a way for us to generate revenue, but there’s got to be another way for us to do it, other than put those up,” said Russell, 41, of Des Moines. “The unfortunate thing is … where’s revenue going to come from? …They’re going to have to raise taxes. ”

The Iowa House Transportation Committee on Thursday voted, 15-6, to ban red-light and speed cameras in Iowa as of July 1. House File 2048 now moves to the House floor.

Seven Iowa cities use the cameras: Cedar Rapids, Clive, Council Bluffs, Davenport, Des Moines, Muscatine and Sioux City. Iowa City is considering installing them; the City Council there voted, 4-3, last week for the cameras. A third and final vote is scheduled Feb. 21.

The cameras generate $7.5 million in fines each year for the cities and $4.4 million for the vendors who provide the cameras, according to a survey by the Iowa League of Cities, which represents the state’s 947 cities. Those numbers don’t include revenue generated in Des Moines, because cameras in the capital city were just activated in June.

“This is taking a lot of hard-earned dollars out of the taxpayers’ pockets,” said state Rep. Walt Rogers, R-Cedar Falls, the bill’s floor manager.

More than 10,000 people signed a petition delivered last month to Gov. Terry Branstad calling for a ban on the cameras. Rogers said Iowans should not have to give up their freedom in the name of safety. He said the cameras in Sioux City, which led to 17,797 citations last year, also led to 574 processing mistakes.

Rogers questioned the reasons for the cameras.

“Cities (are) becoming dependent on this revenue. Does it amount, basically, to a tax?” Rogers asked. “I know that Sioux City charges $194 for a speeding ticket raised this way. They’ve already publicly come out and said if we get rid of the cameras, they’re going to have to raise taxes. Well, I didn’t think it was about revenue. So apparently, it is up there.”

But Jessica Harder, a lawyer and a lobbyist with the Iowa League of Cities, said the issue is about safety, not money.

“Cities don’t deny the fact that they do get revenue from it, but that revenue is also then used towards public safety,” said Harder, whose group is registered against the bill. Harder said cities would like to make their own decisions about whether to have red-light and speed cameras.

Cedar Rapids police Capt. Steve O’Konek last week told lawmakers that accidents with injuries have dropped 75 percent on Interstate 380 since cameras were installed, according to the Quad-City Times.

Tom Stanberry, a lobbyist with the Iowa Insurance Institute, which advocates for property and casualty companies, said the cameras help keep insurance premiums low.

Rogers acknowledged Thursday that the bill banning red-light and speed cameras may not make it through the Legislature this year. The issue was also taken up last year, but it failed to make it all the way through the process.

“What I’m hearing right now is it probably has less of a chance to pass, but if the public really makes known what they want to have happen, possibly there’s a chance we get it passed,” Rogers said.

Branstad said last month that if the bill makes it to his desk this year, he will sign it into law.

State Rep. Andrew Wenthe, D-West Union, said he received a ticket because of the cameras, but his wife was driving. The cameras spur citations to the owner of a vehicle, rather than to the driver. The citations are civil infractions, so they are not reported to the Iowa Department of Transportation and do not affect a person’s driver’s license.

Wenthe said he doesn’t like the high fines, but he also isn’t prepared to take this tool away from law enforcement.

“I do think that in this case, what we’re doing is perhaps infringing on someone’s freedom to speed without getting caught,” Wenthe said. “I just don’t know that’s a good enough reason to ban these cameras.”

Russell hasn’t received a ticket from one of the red-light or speed cameras but said a friend received a $75 ticket and was not happy.

Red-light cameras are used in approximately 555 communities and speed cameras are used in more than 106 jurisdictions in the United States, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, a nonprofit scientific and educational organization aimed at reducing deaths, injuries, and property damage from highway crashes.

See the fiscal note on red-light cameras:
https://www.legis.iowa.gov/DOCS/FiscalNotes/84_5038YHv0_FN.pdf

Listen to the interview with Russell:
http://www.iowapolitics.com/1009/120202Russell_interview.mp3

Listen to comments by state Rep. Walt Rogers:
http://www.iowapolitics.com/1009/120202Walt_Rogers.mp3

Listen to an interview with the Iowa League of Cities:
http://www.iowapolitics.com/1009/120202Cities_interview.mp3

MADISON — Tim Schell says Wisconsin’s public education system is a bit like Rip Van Winkle — it’s waking up to find success has passed its schools behind.

“We were leading the nation in public education, but that was once upon a time,” Schell, director of curriculum for the Waunakee Community School District told members of the Legislature’s Education Committee on Thursday.

“It’s not because our students, our teachers, lack of support. It was because we got a little complacent of where we were at,” he said.

Schell joined several members from Wisconsin’s education community declaring that No Child Left Behind’s time had come and gone, and if the Badger State wants to reclaim its place at the top, it has to adapt.

The hearing of the joint committee was designed to take testimony on the pros and cons of the state Department of Public Instruction’s draft request to apply for a federal waiver from No Child Left Behind, or NCLB.

The 2001 federal act brought accountability and the idea of educational standards into the American educational system, but, its vast critics argue, set unrealistic goals and equivocal measurements.

To receive waivers from many provisions in federal education law, state education agencies must show how they will use flexibility from NCLB requirements to address areas of differentiated recognition, accountability and support, teacher evaluation and support, and the reduction of duplication.

The state Department of Public Instruction, or DPI, is expected to revise the application and submit it to the U.S. Department of Education by Feb. 21.

In this era of deep political divide, jettisoning NCLB, or at least refining it, is something both sides of the political aisle can agree on. So went the testimony Thursday, anyway.

But not everybody is crazy about putting such grand change squarely in the hands of the DPI and its allies.

James Bender, president of School Choice Wisconsin, a nonprofit advocate for school choice programs, characterized his group as “standing on the hill alone” in cautioning the state in moving forward so fast with the way the waiver is written.

He said School Choice’s main concern is the lack of detail in the proposal, opening the door to much interpretation from DPI.

“The group doing the defining is not supportive of school choice programs,” he told Wisconsin Reporter following the hearing. “They (DPI) are asking for a blank tablet which they can write the rules on, and past history has shown DPI does not do anything favorable to education reform.”

“I have found that, in the Legislature, when you leave blanks (in policy), bad things happen,” Bender added.

Some lawmakers, too, expressed concerns about a plan that seemed “light on details,” but for the most part, the waiver proposal has garnered bipartisan support.

Gov. Scott Walker, who has worked closely with state Superintendent of Public Education Tony Evers on reform, said the proposed waiver is a “good starting point.”

“It is important to continue to focus on setting high standards, ensuring transparency and measuring what matters to ensure that all students are ready for college or a career,” Walker said in a statement issued before the hearing. “The waiver will help fight complacency by replicating success and providing assistance to schools in need of improvement.”

The waiver finds, at least in principle, Walker and the Wisconsin Education Association Council, or WEAC, in agreement — a rare occurrence for a teachers union and a governor seen as at war with each other.

“While we have some technical questions, the application represents progress in that the proposed measurement systems are better than what exists today and will put Wisconsin on course for the emergence of improved assessment,” WEAC President Mary Bell said in a statement.

Most agree that NCLB opened the door for greater accountability, but creates impossible, disparate standards for education systems to live by.

Under the federal act, all students must be proficient in math and communication arts by 2014.

Wisconsin raced to the top early on in meeting proficiency targets, which the state cleverly set lower, one education expert said, to keep up.

Fourth-grade reading scores have remained effectively flat in recent years, and that could spell big trouble ahead.

“Virtually all schools will be failing adequate yearly progress,” in the next few years, said Adam Gamoran, John D. MacArthur professor of Sociology and Educational Policy Studies at University of Wisconsin-Madison

“As we project outward, we’re going to have a train wreck,” said Gamoran, who also serves as director for the Wisconsin Center for Education Research

The education professional joined Evers and a chorus of others in calling for better assessments, deploying a smarter balance assessment approach, with a more honest rating system in context.

That means not just judging on test scores, but other areas of performance and improvement.

“Wisconsin’s request for flexibility from NCLB is driven by the belief that increasing rigor across the standards, assessment, and accountability system will result in improved instruction and improved student outcomes,” Evers said in a statement.

California, Connecticut, Minnesota, New Jersey, Washington state and Washington, D.C., have taken similar steps to those being sought by Cook County, according to The Kaiser Family Foundation, a think tank that focuses on health-care related issues.