Kansas House considers proposal
Bill would allow a teachers' union
TOPEKA (UPI)—A collective bargaining procedure between teachers and the boards of public schools and community junior colleges would be created under a bill before the Kansas House of Representatives.
The house votes today on the measure which was given preliminary approval Wednesday after long discussion and major amendment.
The bill would provide for the organization of professional employee's unions or groups, and require at least one meeting between the group and board every year prior to the issuance of annual teacher's contracts.
The measure would forbid any strike, walkout, or boycott by any teacher or teacher organization. This is generally prohibited in collective bargaining systems for public employees.
The major amendment to the bill was sponsored by Rep. Duane "Pete" McGill, R-Winfield. If would restrict the negotiable items to wages and other working conditions. Before the amendment, negotiable items could have been interpreted to mean school curriculum, he said.
Another amendment adopted would require the meetings between the teachers and the board to be public.
One of the critics of the measure was Rep. William Bunten, R-Topeka, who said the collective bargaining procedure would be "degrading to a grand profession, force good teachers to leave and protect the incompetent."
Bunten said teachers cannot be adequately represented collectively, and they should be treated individually on a merit basis.
Rep. Ervin Grant, R-El Dorado, disagreed, noting teacher r groups are asking for collective bargaining rights.
"This bill is a compromise between what the teachers wanted on the one hand and what the school boards wanted on the other hand," he said.
Grant said the bill is very necessary because he's been told in some rural school districts teachers have absolutely "no voice."
The house also tentatively approved a bill to recognize the governor's committee on criminal
Lamb charged will be tested
OLATHE (UPI)—Thomas P. Lamb, charged with the kidnapings of two young women and the slaying of one of them, will receive psychiatric testing by the Menninger Foundation at Topeka with the state paying the bill, under a ruling Wednesday by Johnson County District Court Judge Harold R. Riggs.
In granting a defense motion, Riggs held that Lamb, previously declared an indigent, is entitled to "the same investigative and other services" as defendants who are able to pay for them.
Lamb is charged with kidnapping and killing Miss Karen Sue Kemmerly, 24, whose body was found in a cornfield near Olathe in December, less than a month after Lamb was paroled from state prison, and with the kidnapping in January of Miss Patricia Ann Childs, who was freed unharmed when her father turned $3,500 over to the kidnapper. The ransom was recovered with Lamb's arrest shortly afterward. One of Lamb's court-appointed attorneys, George A. Lowe, told the court the Meninger Foundation had indicated costs of an evaluation at $1,200 to $1,600.
Salem was the original name for Jerusalem.
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administration. It administers federal funds Kansas receives through the Safe Streets Act.
Preliminary approval was also given a resolution asking congress to limit Daylight Savings Time to the period between Memorial Dav and Labor Dav.
The Senate wrestled with a bill to reform the state's conflict of interest law Wednesday, but in the end referred it back to the judiciary committee for more study.
Sen. Norman Gaar, R-Westwood, said referral of the bill back to the committee would amount to killing the measure. But the chairman of that committee, Sen Steadman Ball, R-Atchison, said the bill would be revised and re-introduced before the session is over.
islators from appearing before state officials or agencies on behalf of paying clients.
The decision to refer the bill came despite an amendment by Gaar which struck a provision that would prohibit law-leg-
Gaar also reduced from five to two years the waiting period required before former legislators could become lobbyists.
The sponsor of the motion to refer the bill, Sen. E. W. Strahan, R-Salina, termed the bill "a proposition nobody can live with."
The basic purpose of the measure is to require legislators to file annual disclosure of interest
statements with the secretary of state, and require legislators who are lawyers or certified public accountants to file an additional statement prior to appearing before a state official or agency.
The Senate also passed a bill to strengthen the powers of the Air Quality Conservation Commission, and tentatively approved another bill on environmental problems which would license users of pesticides and regulate application of such chemicals.