6A
Thursday, Januarv 19. 1995
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Committee allows money for blood drive, art show
Allocations now go to full Senate for final approval
By Ian Ritter
Kansan staff writer
The Student Senate finance committee on Tuesday night approved spending $900 for a Red Cross blood drive and $600 for Arts on the Boulevard.
Money for the blood drive, which is scheduled for March 7-9 in the Kansas Union and Templin and Oliver halls, would go toward advertising.
In the past, Senate has not financed the drive, but the Interfraternity Council and the Panhellenic Association, which usually finance the event, can give only $300 this semester.
David Stras, coordinator of the drive, said the greek groups were financing a wide variety of events this semester and could not fully support the blood drive.
George Wyatt, finance committee member,
said spending the $900 was worth it.
"Everybody in their life sometime will probably need to have blood," he said. "Nine hundred dollars is just a small amount when you consider the number of
lives you could be saving."
But not all committee members were in favor of passing the bill on to Senate.
Terry Bell said less money was needed for advertising.
"To cover 75 percent of this program when it was provided by greeks in the past is a lot to ask for," he said. "This campus is big, but I think the word can get out."
Financing for Arts on the Boulevard met little composition.
"It is a Student Senate event for the entire student body," said Lucy Ridway, arts and events chairperson for Student Executive Council.
If approved by Senate, the event would take place in front of Wescoe Hall and would feature student art and performances by the KU Dance Company and the KU Jazz Ensemble.
Of the $600 for the event, $500 would be spent on advertising and $100 would pay the KU Jazz Ensemble.
"This is a very reduced rate," Ridgway said of the funding for the KU Jazz Ensemble. "They usually ask for more money than this."
Committee member Derek Ward gave a speech in favor of bringing the KU Jazz Ensemble to the event.
"This is worth spending money on, a good performance and well worth your dollar," he said.
TOPEKA — House Republicans and Democrats are running a race to see who can come up with the best plan for reducing Kansas' high rate of taxation on motor vehicles.
Legislators propose slashing auto taxes
The Associated Press
Thirty GOP legislators and 41 Democrats introduced rival bills on Wednesday, and hearings on them were scheduled for Thursday morning in the House Taxation Committee.
The GOP plan would reduce property taxes on automobiles and trucks by one-third all at one time, in 1996, while the Democrats' plan would cut them in half over a five-year period.
Kansas' vehicle taxes are among the highest in the nation. Vehicles are assessed at 30 percent of market value, and the local property mill rate applied to that assessed value to determine the amount of taxes owners must pay.
As an example, a $15,000 automobile is assessed at $4,500. If the local mill levy for all taxing entities is 100 mills, the tax on that vehicle is $450 a year.
Republicans would replace the estimated $100 million in lost revenue from the taxes by freezing state government spending for two years—fiscal years 1996 and 1997.
Democrats would replace the
estimated $150 million its plan w o u l d reduce revenue by taking the money out of future state rev e n u e growth.
But Rep. Tom Bradley, R-Topeka, chief sponsor of the GOP bill, said he still expects complaints from school and local officials, because they would be sacrificing the natural growth in vehicle tax revenue caused by increased
Revenue from vehicle taxes, which now amounts to
about $300 million a year, goes to local school districts, cities and counties.
prices on new cars and trucks.
Both sides want to hold them "harmless," meaning the state would replenish the revenue so local units of government don't have to raise mill levies to make up for the lost vehicle revenue.
"But we want to hold them harm-less the best we can," Bradley said.
tax assessment rate on vehicles from the present 30 percent of market value to 20 percent starting in 1996.
The GOP bill, sponsored by Bradley and 29 other Republicans, w o u l d reduce the
The Democrats' bill would reduce the assessment rate by 3 percentage points a year until it reaches 15 percent of value in the year 2000.
Also submitted during Wednesday's House session were bills to:
—Initiate a beverage container return law in Kansas, requiring a five-cent deposit on all such containers, to take effect as soon as the bill becomes law upon publication in the Kansas Register.
—Allow the sale of alcoholic beverages on three holidays — Memorial Day, Independence Day and Labor Day —but continue to ban liquor sales on Thanksgiving, Christmas and Sundays.
—Allow law enforcement officers to detain minors who are not at home or at school during school hours.
Also introduced were two proposed constitutional amendments. One would require votes of the people on all tax and spending increases by the state and local units of government. The other would limit increases in state spending to the percentage that personal income of Kansans rose the previous year.
Gov. Bill Graves has proposed limiting state government spending increases to the same percentage that personal income rises.
The Associated Press
EMPORIA — The federal government is dragging its feet on identifying the health problems of Gulf War veterans because it wants to avoid liability, the national commander of the American Legion said.
"When the government admits it had liability as to treatment of a particular illness that relates to military service, it opens up the door for all those who have a similar problem to come in and seek treatment, so it costs money." William Detweiler said in Emporia on Tuesday.
Detweiler toured American Legion posts in Kansas this week, addressing veterans in Emporia, Junction City and elsewhere.
"The government out-waited the atomic veterans from World War II until almost all of them were dead, before admitting liability," Detweiler said.
Of the 697,000 troops who served in the 1990-91 war, about 6 percent have reported ailments ranging from muscle pain, memory loss and birth defects to respiratory and heart problems and certain cancers.
State commissioner Bell's hearing set
The government has said that all but about 15 percent have known illnesses that explain the symptoms, but the Clinton administration said last month it planned to devote up to $20 million to figuring out if there is a single syndrome.
Detweiler also criticized plans to exhibit the Enola Gay — the B-29 bomber that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima in 1945 — at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., beginning in May.
"We are not going to allow our people to be dishonored by this exhibit," he said.
Former insurance official accused
The Associated Press
TOPEKA — Two special prosecutors get their chance, starting Tuesday, to convince a judge that Fletcher Bell should stand trial on criminal charges stemming from his workers' compensation case.
It may take six days for them to present evidence.
A preliminary hearing for Bell, state insurance commissioner for 20 years from 1971-91, is scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. Tuesday in the courtroom of Shawnee County District Judge Fred Jackson. The purpose of the hearing is to determine whether there is enough evidence
to bind Bell over for trial.
Bell is charged with two felony counts of theft by deception. In February 1991, just six weeks after retiring from office, he received a $94,469 award for a back injury he said he sustained two years earlier while lifting a briefcase from the trunk of his car.
Reports of the award created a public outcry, and Bell eventually agreed to give up $99,607 in benefits. He was to receive weekly benefit payments through 1996.
The two special prosecutors, Junction City attorneys Steve Opat and Steve Hornbaker, accused Bell of filing a false workers' compensation claim and of being involved in an effort to keep his award from becoming public.
Bell's attorney, Mark Bennett Jr. of Topeka, has maintained that the former insurance commissioner is innocent.
Bennett tried to get the charges thrown out and filed a motion for dismissal. However,
Judge Jackson denied the motion on Dec. 29.
Opat and Hornbaker have said they plan to take as many as six days to present evidence because their case is "fact intensive", or difficult to digest without a lot of information.
The two special prosecutors allege that Bell did not injure his back as he described in his workers' compensation claim.
The second charge relates to how his case was handled by the state. The prosecutors believe the former commissioner participated in a successful effort to steer the case to the wrong fund, one administered by the Department of Administration, rather than one administered by the Insurance Department.
Had the case been handled by the Insurance Department fund, Bell might have been required to bring someone else into the case—increasing the chances it would become public, according to prosecutors.
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