Page 4 University Daily Kansan, February 5, 1982
Opinion
Pre-enrollment—at last
Just a nod from Strong Hall, and suddenly, simply, the Allen Field House enrollment hasse is gone.
Well, maybe not so simply.
Last Monday, Chancellor Gene A. Budig approved a computerized on-line pre-enrollment system to go into effect for spring semester 1983.
Eliminating KU's archaic enrollment system took more than a stroke from the chancellor's pen.
Years of work by committees of faculty, students and administrators laid the groundwork for the new system. And at last, with a helpful boost from the chancellor, their work has paid off.
Since 1974, committees from the University Senate executive committee and the Student Senate have researched the problem, collected opinions and petitioned the administration for the new enrollment system.
The first prediction was that the
University of Kansas would have computerized pre-enrollment by 1976. Then 1978. But late is better than never and the change is a welcome one.
There is no way to make enrollment painless and new headaches will surely develop under the new system.
Students may be trading long lines at the card tables for long lines at the terminal. And sections will still fill up. Someone will always have to take Spanish 102 at 7:30 a.m. or English 101 at 4:30 p.m.
Only time will tell if computerized pre-enrollment can fulfill its promise.
But the new system can't be worse then the old one and it may turn out to be a great deal better.
The University may only be taking a small step toward improving service for its students, but thanks to those who have worked on the development of the new system, it's taking a giant step into the 20th century.
Severance tax shaky base to support public education
In his opening remarks to the Kansas Legislature last month, Gov. John Carlin proposed a source of revenue that he said would reduce the property tax burden on Kansas citizens, increase state aid to public schools around the state and help subsidize highway maintenance from money saved out of the state's general fund.
That source of revenue is in the form of a severance tax. You know, that tax that Carlin pushed last year to slap on all the big, mean and rich oil producers in Kansas.
Our hero! Carlin looks like a true champion of the people. Of course it could be coincidental that an election is just around the corner and the president is going to build a political strategy around these days.
Carlin has presented a case that admittedly the pretty good at a first glance.
But believe it or not, there is another side to the severance tax story; we just never hear it.
In a sense, a severance tax already exists in Kansas. The Department of Energy has ruled
DAN BOWERS
that the present ad valorem tax on leased land and equipment used by gas and oil, qualifies as a form of a severance tax because it is based on production factors.
Through this form of taxation, figures from the state revenue department indicate that the oil and gas industry carries an average of 10 percent of the local tax burden across the state.
Admittedly, there are states that tax their oil producers at much higher rates than Kansas do, but when those comparisons begin, there are other factors that need to be examined.
Although Carlin argues that Kansas is one of few states without a severance tax, most states with a severance tax don't have the ad valorem property tax along with it. An additional 5-percent税 would put Kansas producers under a tax rate equal to those in most of the other oil-producing states.
The fact is, oil wells in Kansas just don't produce at the level of those in Texas, Oklahoma
It's like comparing apples and oranges. Over 90 percent of the producing wells in Kansas fall under the "stripper" category. Stripper wells, which produce 77 percent of all oil produced in Kansas, are those that produce less than 10 barrels of oil a day.
The average Kansas oil well produces at a paltry clip of 3.6 barrels a day, according to figures provided by the Kansas Independent Oil and Gas Association. This contrasts with average figures of 5.6 per day in Oklahoma and 26.4 barrels per day in Colorado.
Alaska, which has only 642 wells, produced
one times the amount of oil that the 47,000 wells
received in a year.
What this boils down to is that most of the oil
The problems caused by plugging these wells would be twofold.
First, the closing of thousands of marginal wells and the subsequent drop-off in exploration would cause drastic layoffs in an industry that employs nearly 38,000 Kansans.
Secondly, the extra tax could set off a chain reaction that in the long run would produce fewer tax dollars. Less exploration, closed wells and unemployment in the industry would generate fewer and fewer tax dollars as more marginal wells were shut down. This problem is coupled with the fact that the oil and gas industry is a拈ing one in Kansas.
Since 1960, oil production in Kansas has dropped from more than 120 million barrels a year to less than 60 million barrels. Only in the past eight years it has shown a slight upwing, and that can be attributed to the fact that drilling and exploration activity has tripped since 1973.
If the state begins counting on a particular source of income, as Carlin has by including the severance tax in this year's budget proposal, it may be that from this source the state begin decreasing over the years.
The state tax commissioner miscalculated the amount of money that the new tax would raise, and the state is hard-pressed for funds to meet its sizeable commitment to education. By guessing wrong on projections for oil and gas production, North Dakota found itself *100 million* short.
North Dakota learned this the hard way last year when it imptaled a 6.5-percent increase on its crude oil prices.
While the figure would not be as great in Kansas, declining production trends would continue to chip away at the $125 million Carlin saw the tax would raise for fiscal year 1983.
And there is one widespread misconception that should be cleared up. Higher education will not see one penny of the revenues generated by a severance tax.
The severance tax revenues would be collected by the state and placed into a special fund for education. This money would then be allocated to the public school systems. This would free some money that is normally taken from the state's general fund for school aid. The money from the general fund would then be placed into a special fund for highway maintenance.
There would be no additional funds to allocate unless choices chose not to cut local property
Any property tax relief would be short-lived. Furthermore, the severance tax is setting a dangerous precedent by burdening one industry with the solution to the state's budget woes.
As State Rep. William Bunting, R-Topeka, said last week that basic budget issues should be handled in basic trust. Don't need we it.
Or does the state have any budget toes?
As State Rep. William Ruten-Boos?
"We have over $183 million in the state assets that we're said," he added. "We are one of the most financially successful companies."
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Sun setting quickly on solar energy
If Jimmy Carter released a sunrise of federal aid over the infant solar energy industry, Ronald Reagan is reeling in Apollo for the sunset.
The Reagan administration has reversed the federal role in solar development. Where Carter enthusiastically sponsored research efforts, he has been unable to compete on its own with other technologies.
We ought to be wondering how Reagan is changing the future of solar energy in this country, and whether we can plan on solar power as a real option in coming years.
Dwindling numbers in budgetleders show the crash that solar energy has taken among federal priorities: Carter had requested $707 million for solar research for fiscal 1982. Reagan cut that figure by more than half, to $303 million. His administration's Office of Management and Budget is calling for only $70 million to be spent next year.
If the OMB proposal is followed, the government will be spending $1 on solar research next year for every $100 the Carter administration spent.
Carter had given the responsibility of federal solar research to the Solar Energy Research Institute, based in Golden, Colorado. The Reagan administration has already, we could say, lightened the institute's work load substantially. Its budget of $120 million has been reduced to $50 million. Another institute researchers have lost their positions.
Reagan has said on several occasions that he hoped to cancel the credits sooner.
As for tax credits for using solar techniques, Reagan is looking forward to the day the credits will be history. Credits of 40 percent of the installed cost of home solar energy systems first became effective in 1978 and the program in 1986 for the credits to continue
success stories. The total picture is one of a toddler, uncertain and uncoordinated, but
The number of homes incorporating solar techniques into their designs is growing slowly, according to the Internal Revenue Service. About 58,000 taxpayers used solar devices in their homes and claimed the tax credit in 1978. In the following year, 61,000 people used solar devices. The figures say that 115,000 people took advantage of the solar credit during 1980.
Still, inflation and high interest rates have dampened the growth of solar sales, which
JEFF THOMAS
Without the tax credit, the industry probably would have much less than its current levels.
many in the industry had wagered on. Several firms have closed shop in the last two years.
Although Reagan is cutting research funds, one last battle in basic research is still being fought. The prize is the ability to generate electricity from the sun, not merely cut out so much of it that commercial solar energy systems only use the sun's heat directly to conserve energy.
The bustle of today's research focuses mostly on silicon cells, about 3 to 6 inches in diameter, which absorb sunlight on one side and within the width of a human hair, transmitting electricity. The little hot spots go by a longer, more cumbersome name-photovoltaics.
The trick is making the cells pay. So far, a cell mann hasn't been developed that will generate electricity.
When Reagan came into office he faced a choice on how to deal with solar energy. He could have continued research subsidies, or even increased them, to develop marketable solar energy systems, especially photovoltaics, as soon as possible. Or he could continue the federal work needed for private firms to make solar energy systems sell.
He chose the second option
He chose the second option. Competition drives American ingenuity, Reagan said. If solar power is destined to work, the market will tell us, he said.
To a point, Reagan is right. The energy alternatives we eventually rely on must be able to survive without riding the government's back. But sponsoring research and developing country's energy system aren't the same time it is cooperation and the other is dependence.
Reagan is costing us time. His faith in the marketplace won't replace the millions of dollars in research he has withdrawn. Over the next four years, federal investment in all renewable energy sources will be $2 billion less due to Reagan's policies, according to Bloomberg. The government days have sent a signal that will divert private investors from renewable sources as well.
Of course, canceling the solar-home tax credit should be unthinkable. That stroke would turn an insecure field into a floundering one. The industry would need all the more time to revamp when Reagan's energy prices hit the magic point.
The bottom line is clear: Reagan has retarded the solar development in this country. As utility consumers, we'll be the losers as we wait for market prices to rise or for companies to invest in solar energy. Then more money will go to research. Later, problems will be solved.
Reagan could have shortened the time between higher energy prices and the wide infusion of alternatives. Reagan, evidently a leader with our energy costs, cohesed otherwise.
Pot Shots
"Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio? Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you . . . ooh."
When 'Joltin' Joe roared centerfield in Yankee Stadium with his graceful lope, he caught the effortless innocence of America's post-World War II period.
Then the '6s set in. Kids effortlessb
crushed main street instead of centerfield. Joe became a bit of nostalgia in a Paul Simon
Joe returned, selling coffee makers, and sometimes I think Simon should revise that line from "Mrs. Robinson" to say "Our students turn their bleary eyes to you . . ."
on the snow-coated, windswet KU campus, it's a bafflingly common sight—a student, he bent against the mercelless assault of the winter wind, trudging determinedly along, clad in heavy coat, thick trousers, and no hat.
got a Mr. Coffee for Christmas, making the third to infiltrate the cooperative house I live in. Late at night, under the silent stars, while the rest of the house snoozes innocently, our three Mr. Coffees can be heard burbling away, undermining the early-to-bed values of DiMaggio's heyday. The emit a dark, menacing-looking concoction, which steams and hisses like some mad scientist's potion as it fills our nuddy Mr. Coffee beakers.
we gulp it spasmodically and grind away again at laboratory assignments.
Whenever I spot one of these hatless unfortunates—and it's often—my mind's eye
Joe, you were the all-American hero. The Yankee Clipper. How could you become the evil hunch of the insidious Mr. Coffee?
travel back to the Cincinnati Bengals—San Diego Chargers NFL playoff game, where scores of over-lubricated fans cavorted sloppily on national television.
There's truth to the old Boy Scout saying that if your feet get cold, put your hat on. A person's head, because of the brain's copious storage for fat, can absorb any other part of the human anatomy.
This bit of information is nothing new to anyone who makes a living working outdoors. Glance about at the facilities operations workers in their seemingly unremitting war on the air force. On a bitterly cold day, a bare head among them is as rare as a stegosaurus.
But then, pulling on a frayed old stocking hat, or a baseball cap smudged with the dirt of warmer days, is to some a betrayal of the canons of fashion. Oh, well. A hat, no matter how gritty or fancy it looks, doesn't do much for a $2 haircut.
Well, it's finally happened. A hard-core Wildcat has become a bop-a-gun Jawhawk.
I am told transformations almost as startling have taken place throughout history: brainwashing, the rape of the Sabines, and the metamorphosis of a labor leader into a conservative president of the United States, to name just a few. But, as for
the change in question, well, I've never heard of a documented case.
Raised in Manhattan for ten years, I never imagined I would one day root with all the enthusiasm I could muster for "that school down the river." I had been taught that purple was the perfection in combination of colors blue and red, that the Jawhawk was a blue jacket, that publicish imaginations and that KU students had been proved genetically inferior.
I learned to chai stunchaingly, "Eat 'em up. eat 'em up KSU," said foul revisions of the verse.
But that's all finished, thanks to almost three years of attendance at Harvard on the-Kaw. Indoctrination was painstaking and traumatic, but the final step was quick and
I woke up this morning to find myself screaming, "Eat 'em up, eat 'em up, K. Ui!"