Land assessment, highway construction key issues
(Editor's Note: This is the second in a series of three stories that explore the connection by the way the Kansas Legend traced.
By RICHARD PAXSON Kansan Staff Reporter
Although bingo and liquor-by-the-drink are the stamour issues of the 1975 Kansas Legislature, two other issues have been the focus of discussion.
Those issues are the basis for assessment of agricultural land for property tax purposes and highway construction. The first skirmishes in the assessment controversy began this week even as legislators debated how often silver-haired ladies should be allowed to play bingo and whether liberalized liquor laws would be a boon or a boondock for the state.
A constitutional amendment that would allow the state to assess agricultural land on the basis of its potential to produce revenue was approved Tuesday by the House Assessment and Taxation Committee. All land in the state now is assessed on the basis of its market value.
The bill was scheduled to have its first reading in the House Wednesday, and then go back to the committee for further study. House Speaker Dune Cornell requested that the committee introduce the resolution.
A provision for deferred taxation of agricultural land is included in the bill. Under a plan of deferred
taxation, the assessor would determine both a fair value of the land and a value for the income-producing ability of the property.
The owner of farm land would pay a tax based on the land's potential to produce income. If the owner sold the land or changed it to residential or commercial use, he would also be required to pay the difference between what he had paid already and the amount of the tax on the land's market value.
The deferred taxation provision was reportedly added to the resolution to discourage land speculation from buying large parcels of land. A further expectation of selling it later at a higher price.
The proposal has many other important supporters among the state's leaders. Gov. Robert F. Bennett used differential assessment as a major plank in his campaign platform while he was still in the legislature. Lt. Gov. Shelby Smith was the chairman of the interim study committee on taxation and taxation that first recommended some form of tax assessment based on the use of land.
The concept of differential assessment has also been endorsed by most leaders both parties in the race.
State Rep. Dennis Everett, R-Manhattan, House majority leader, is the only legislative leader to have been elected to a three-year term.
Everett's district is largely urban, and his position is representative of that of many urban legislators.
Senators and representatives from outside the farmlands fear that the taxes assessed on the basis of the income-producing ability of farm land will be less than the taxes on the market value of the land, but the more they think the less might be compensated for by increasing property taxes on urban real estate.
Special interest groups are already lobbying to protect their interests. The Kansas Farm Bureau and the Kansas Livestock Association want some action to address assessment, but aren't promoting a specific plan.
The Kansas Association of Commerce and Industry and the League of Kansas Municipalities both oppose differential assessment. A statement issued by the league says that it is against any "legislation which attempts to require the use of various factors to the exclusion of market value as the basis for assessment, when the objective is to shift the burden of taxes to urban property."
If the basis of assessment is changed, the league statement says, the cities should be compensated for increased taxes through increased state aid or given authority to key additional taxes.
A similar resolution on use-value assessment was
introduced in the 1974 legislature, but wasn't acted upon. A 1973 resolution that would have amended state law to provide for differential assessment was rejected by a congressional opinion issue by former Atty. Gen. Vern Miller last month.
Miller ruled that the plan would violate Article II, Section I, of the Kansas Constitution, which states, "The legislature shall provide for a uniform and equal rate of assessment and taxation."
Resolutions that propose constitutional amendments must be approved by a two-thirds vote of the legislature, which was vetoed by the governor, the amendment would hold a ballot for the 1978 election or at a special election.
Three issues on highway construction that also divide rural and urban legislators are whether to reorganize the highway department into a department of transportation, whether to continue subsidizing proposed turnpikes from state freeway or requiring them to emphasize the building of improved two-lane streets instead of four-lane freeways in the state's highway construction plan as an economy measure.
The proposal for a department of transportation provides for the replacement of the current highway director by a secretary of transportation who would have the power to decide where roads would be built. The present state highway commission would become only an advisory board.
Some rural legislators think that since the highway commission, on which there have traditionally been representatives from all areas of the state, would no longer decide where roads would be built, most new roads would be built in urban areas with larger populations.
Many of the same legislators also oppose the use of freeway funds to build toll roads. They assert that the freeway fund will be depleted, leaving no funds for road construction in rural areas.
The conflict over this subsidization was a major issue in the two legisla-tions' approval of the provisions.
Funding of three more turnipkes, one along the eastern Kansas border, one between Ottawa and Coffeville and another in Southwest Kansas, will be considered by the 1975 legislature.
Their subsidization may be blocked by a suit filed in Shawnee County District Court that challenges the legality of the Southeast Kansas Turnpike. The trial begins Monday.
There is more agreement among rural and urban legislators about the need to build "super two" highways instead of more four-lane freeways, although some Western Kansas legislators have grumbled that no such freeway has yet been built in their area.
KANSAN
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY
Women's funding hike likely
Vol. 85-No. 80 Thursday, January 30,1975
The University of Kansas Lawrence, Kansas
By JOHN JOHNSTON Kansas Staff Reporter
The Senate will vote tonight on a bill that
would allow Women's Sports by
$16,000 for next year.
Women's Sports will receive a 10 per cent increase in funds for next year, even though the Student Senate passes a proposed law in order for Women's Sports at its meeting tonight.
But because of increased state support, Women's Sports probably will receive an increase of 10 per cent even if the Senate passes the bill, according to figures released Wednesday by John Beisner, student body president.
The Senate will meet at 6:30 p.m. in the Jahvah Room of the Kansas Union
The bill under consideration would reduce the Senate's allocate of student activity fees for women's intercollegiate sports to $47,819 from $63,860.99. Women's Sports currently gets $38,000 from the state. The girls' Robe Bennett presented to the legislature last week calls for an increase in funding to $88,000 for Women's Sports.
Beisner said there was a big difference in funding men's and women's athletics. The
If both the Senate bill and the governor's budget pass, the budget would increase from $121,860.09 to $135,819, an increase of 10.3 per cent. Although the governor's budget hasn't yet been approved by the legislature, most sources say there is very little chance that the proposed allocation for Women's Sports will be cut.
Spread-out defense By Staff Photographer GEORGE MILLNER III
Rick Suttle (33) makes it difficult for Ron Wrigley (24) of Colorado to get rid of the ball in last night's 81-59 win at Allen Field House. See story page 6.
Senate's allocation to the women is a program subsidy with no expected monetary returns, but a funding increase or decrease would result in lower ticket prices, Beigner said.
If the bill passes, the Senate will redistribute the money cut from Women's Sports by adding it to an increased allocation for the student ticket subsidy for mens sports. The price of season football is reduced from $15 and $13 to $10 each by increasing Senate's subsidy from $83,519.91 to $147,004. he said.
Then during the Christmas vacation the presidents meet with Bennett and urged that he include the funding increase in his budget proposal. Beisner said.
"This summer Sidax2k uses me to get
without siliconed skins & plastics," Bessaroff
This summer the state's Council of Student Body Presidents met and discussed increasing funding for women in groundbreaking increased funding for women's education, and presidents learned that a proposal was being considered to increase state aid to these schools, and they gave it their support, he said.
Beiser is obviously pleased with the situation; he said that if the bill passed, both his objectives would be achieved. Ticket prices could be lowered, and KU's sports program could continue to expand, he said.
"I feel it's an equitable situation. They're going to have more money and we're get-
student ticket prices down to a halfway decent level," he said.
Marian Washington, director of women's athletics, doesn't agree with Beisner. She will present her case for keeping the Senate's allocation at its current level. Washington declined a comment before her and was not asked about it. didn't view the situation as Beisner did.
Lewis Gregory, chairman of the Senate's Finance and Auditing Committee, said. The bill as it now stands will get pretty expensive if Mr. Kennedy is delivered in any way it could have trouble."
Debate over the bill is expected to be extensive, but Greggory wouldn't ask what he wants.
A petition drive to show concern for the proposed cut in funding from the Senate is being headed by a group of women athletes. The governor, who said the drive, was unaware of the 10 per cent increase in funding that would result from increased state aid, but she said her group should have taken the signatures because it was afraid the governor's proposal might not be approved.
Beisner said that if for some reason the governor's budget wasn't approved, the Senate would probably vote to reintake the money from activity fees at the current level.
Beisner said that the ticket subsidy was an important area of Senate support because it was the most used student service the Senate funded. About one-half of tickets buy football tickets, and approximately a cent buy season tickets for basketball.
Meredith Miller, another organizer of the petition drive, didn't know of the increased state funding either, but said she still supported the drive because there were many luxuries that should be cut from the men's program.
— a bill that would limit spending to $12 billion, a $140 billion president and vice president to seven cents per constituent. The bill would also require disclosure of campaign expenditures and
Other matters on the agenda for the Senate meeting include:
See SENATE Page 3
Sianina up
By Staff Photographer BARBARA O'BRIEN
A Student Senate proposal to cut funding of women's athletics prompted this protest in the Kansas Union yesterday. Ron Downey, Anchor enseignor, signa a petition protesting the proposal at the table, which was attended by Pam Blast, Wichita freshman Smith, gymnastics team member; and Jill Gruba, volleyball team member.
SenEx endorses exigency report
Financial exigency has been described as an extreme financial crisis in which the University would be forced to fire tenured professors to sustain its position as a high quality institution.
SenEx approved the final draft of the document with few changes, using studied examples and results from the study.
This report outlines policies and procedures to be followed if the University receives any documentation regarding the third such document with exigency to be produced in the last year and a half of study, and is generally considered to be a compromise between the previous two.
By BETTY HAEGELIN Kenson Staff Reporter
Kansan Staff Reporter
The final report from the ad hoc committee on financial exigency was approved by SenEx Wednesday and scheduled for presentation at the Feb. 20 University Council meeting.
That section of the exigency report states that: "Once a unit is granted permission to recruit for a new faculty position, and before the position is offered, the Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs shall formally invite all former faculty members of the University released under Financial Exigency to apply for the position.
some clarifications were made. However the possible violation of affirmative action guidelines was raised concerning one section of the document that discussed the steps for rehiring faculty members that were released because of exigency.
Joel Gold, SenEx member and chairman of the ad hoc committee, said that instead of
"Except for an individual found to be unqualified for the new position, former faculty members applying for the position under their reinstatement right shall be considered to have first priority for the position."
Aircraft exhaust idea helps lift, cuts noise
Just one year ago aerospace experts told C. Edward Lan, associate professor of aerospace engineering, that his theories on aircraft exhaust systems were unrealistic. But since that time, Lan has set out to prove those people wrong.
He initially received an $18,000 grant in 1973 from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) through the Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va. The grant allowed Lan to develop his basic theory that an aircraft could operate in deep water faster with the engine and exhaust located on top rather than below the wing.
NASA officials were so encouraged with Lan's revolutionary concept that he was awarded a second grant earlier this month for $27,312.
Lan said Monday that his latest findings and the resulting grant seemed to dispel a
He began work on the project shortly after he came to the University in 1968, Lanc
"I originally experimented with propeller-type engines," he said. "Since the propeller engine affects the wing of an aircraft just as a jet engine does, I was able to apply my theories to jet engines without any problem."
Lan's primary tool in testing his theories is the University's computer, he said. Lan said that after the computer simulation process was finished, a model aircraft would be built for testing in wind tunnel conditions.
According to Lan, only a few companies in the world are attempting to utilize the over-the-wing engine and exhaust system. An exception is the Boeing Company of Seattle which has designed an aircraft known as the YC14, he said.
trying to re-word the exigency document, he would work for a change in the affirmative action guidelines to take into account this case presented by the exigency document.
"I think we are running into two different types of obligations the University would have." Gold said. "We will present the new legislation and change in affirmative action guidelines."
Arthur Breiphel, faculty member of SenEx, said that SenEx would have to give serious consideration to the guidelines and needs of women and minority faculty members.
"If I were a minority or woman faculty member I would fight this very strongly," he said. "But since the majority of us are males I make images this section will pass."
Gold noted though, that women and minority faculty members ultimately might be the principal recipients of the benefits of this preferential rehiring.
"Women and minorities generally have weaker positions and might be more likely to be cut during financial exigency." Gold was a strong off fit if this section were left intact.
Another problem seen with implementation of the report is that under the present timetable of the report, a lead time of over two years would be needed between the release and senior decorated declared exigency and any tenured faculty member could be released.
However, Arno Krupp, a member of the ad boc committee, said that realization of this load time by the funding agencies in the University is the continuation of the University's future budgets.
Francis Heller, faculty member of Senx, said that the problem grows acute when attempting to deal beyond a one year budget for the budget plans of the legislature.
"If our enrollment is projected to drop by 3,000, the legislature might say we have to cut 200 faculty members by the very next year," Heller said. "But the procedure in this case would be to limit the type of cut. The legislature just doesn't operate beyond a year's notice."
"The Board of Regents, the legislature and the governor have a commitment to
University, and if that means having to have definite budget figures for the next two years, then they had better start looking ahead." Knapper said.
Another change made in the report is that the introduction and first section of the report concerning preventative planning will include a clarification which will separate them from the procedural sections of the document.
This change was proposed so that the suggestions contained in these first parts won't be considered legally binding and thereby jeopardize the implementation of the rest of the report if the suggestions contained therein aren't carried out. However, this introductory section will be followed by a statement to go before the council, and the chancellor will be strongly encouraged to follow the guidelines.
"I think it's essential that we don't completely separate the first sections from the rest of the report," Gold said. "It's not the content of the sections so much as it is the context they provide for the following material in the report that's important."
make make expressions and use these to specifying specifically stating times allowed for an appeal.
See EXIGENCY Page 5
173 students file for office
By DON SMITH Kansan Staff Reporter
In the late hours before the Student Senate 5 p.m. filing deadline Wednesday, 128 students filed for the Senate, which brought the filing total to 145. One hundred and thirty students filed for Senate last year.
Twenty students met the filing deadline for class officer. Also, four teams of two students met the filing deadline for student body president and vice president. A total of 173 students filed for office.
The election will be Feb. 14-15.
A list of candidates will appear tomorrow.