Ticked commissioners had every reason to blast their lawmakers

Labette County Commissioners were right on track Monday when they passed a resolution which places much of the blame for their seven-mill tax increase on the Kansas Legislature.
Sure, the commissioners had the option of stripping the county budget, lowering salaries, paying a lower portion of employee health insurance and insisting that county crews and sheriff’s deputies drive older vehicles. But experience has taught them that such short-changes always catch up with them in future years.  It’s better to bite the bullet within the existing budget year, adjust the levy, take the criticism and keep their eyes focused upon better times.
The Kansas Legislature started its dirty tricks back in 2002 when it withdrew Local Ad Valorem Tax Reduction funds (LAVTR) right in the middle of a local budget year. That played heck with counties, cities and other local entities that relied upon those funds to control their levies.
But that was mild compared to what the lawmakers did to local governments this year by withholding the liquor taxes, machinery taxes and fuel taxes that belonged to counties and cities — not to the State of Kansas.
Their reasoning? Of course — they needed the money to cover their own hind-ends.
It is unconscionable that the Kansas Senate and Kansas House would allow such stealing of funds that should have flowed back to the places where they were collected — here at home.
So, yes, your county commissioners have plenty of reason to be consternated by the goings-on in Topeka this year. It started with the closing of two efficiently operated correctional camps at Oswego, causing our unemployment in the southern part of Labette County to spiral upward. And it continued with the Legislature’s raping of local communities by tapping funds that simply were not theirs to take.
We don’t blame the commissioners for passing the resolution which you can read about on Page 1. Sometimes it helps to blow of a little steam and the commission did a mighty fine job of it on Monday at the courthouse.
Hear, hear.
— Rudy Taylor, Publisher