Thursday, September 17, 1987 / University Daily Kansan
16
State/Local
Politics viewed as service, not just job, Docking says
By MARK TILFORD
Staff writer
At the end of his informal lecture yesterday, the former lieutenant governor of Kansas was given a small bronze Jayhawk statue in appreciation of his appearance.
"This is what I really came here for," Tom Docking said, to the lauger of about 100 students, many of whom were in college or degrees in business administration.
The symbol of the state in which Docking received his education fit well with his address that was part of his business. Business Executive Lecture series.
"Politics in the public sector is an honor to be involved in," he said. "But you do have to do it as a public service, not to get yourself a job."
"The best advice I have had is to get your training, get your education and get yourself established."
Those were the keys to turning the lieutenant governor's office into a high-profile position, Docking said.
"The office was, to be blunt, almost comatose when I came in," he said.
"Gov. (John) Carlin was well aware of the image, and felt it did not reflect well on his image in his first term."
Docking ran with Carlin and was elected lieutenant governor in 1983. He was defeated in the 1986 gubernatorial race by Republican Mike Hayden.
As lieutenant governor, Docking said, he was given the staff and the budget to initiate his own policies, but it was his education and experience in business that gave him the motivation to follow through with those policies.
"You have to define your potential and resources and then exercise them to the best of your ability," he said.
Docking, 33, is a Lawrence native. He received his master's in business administration from the University of Wisconsin and he is a partner in a Wichita law firm.
He gave examples of his work on property tax laws and his efforts to attract business to Kansas as an arts and business skills while serving in office.
"I had some pretty handy tools in my portfolio for dealing with these issues." Docking said.
On a chalkboard he mapped out a rough diagram of his campaign's organization to show the similarities between business and politics and the importance not only of formulating a strategy but also marketing it.
"It all looks great on paper — it'a a shame it didn't win the election."
Docking encouraged students to try their hands at politics if they felt motivated to work in the public sector.
He later mentioned a fund-raising visit Sept. 27 in Wichita by Massachusetts governor and Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis. Docking's campaign debts total about $20,000, and he plans to use the fund-raiser to eliminate them.
He has not endorsed Dukakis for president, but Docking's wife, Jill, who also attended the lecture yesterday, is working on the Dukakis campaign.
State colleges request funds
The Associated Press
TOPEKA — The state's universities need a massive infusion of money to buy or replace equipment in classrooms and laboratories to remain competitive with universities in other states, university officials told lawmakers yesterday.
The officials, representing the state Board of Regents institutions, said the universities' equipment needs far outstripped the state's current mechanism for financing the mass or replacement of equipment.
"We have to devise some way to keep our state competitive educationally." Robert Kruh, associate provost at Kansas State University, told the Legislature's study Committee on Ways and Means. "It's just a matter of which of your starving children you feed first."
The committee has before it a proposal to allow the state to issue bonds to pay for equipment. The bill
was introduced last session and is not being formally discussed yet, said Sen. Gus Bogina, R-Leneca, chairman of the study committee and the standing Senate Ways and Means Committee.
However, lawmakers asked the regents to supply them with equipment requests they would make if a bond issues of $10 million, $25 million or $50 million were approved by the Legislature.
The institutions sent back the requests, and several added more proposed equipment purchases their officials thought were needed. In all, the institutions listed $77.7 million of proposed equipment purchases.
"The needs they put on the table are legitimate," said Marlin Rein, associate director of business affairs for the University of Kansas. "They appear large because we're dealing with a problem that was created over a substantial number of years."
In fact, the officials said they could feel justified in asking for even more. Kruh said Kansas State, which was allowed to list $8.5 million worth of equipment needs under the highest level of the proposed bond issue, could easily find $15 million worth of needs on its Manhattan campus alone. KU officials listed $16.6 million worth of equipment needs for its Lawrence campus.
In Fiscal Year 1987, which ended June 30, the regents institutions spent $28.7 million on equipment.
"We have some severe problems in funding new equipment," said Morgan Olsen, associate vice president for fiscal affairs at Emporia State University. "We cannot keep up with technology."
Kruh and Olsen said universities sometimes had to wait until the end of the fiscal year to buy equipment, so that they could spend unused funds previously set aside for contingency plans.
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