Minority party endorses idea of raising state’s $7.25 minimum wage
BY: TIM CARPENTER
Kansas Reflector
TOPEKA — Kansas Democrats vowed on the second day of the legislative session Tuesday to concentrate on reforms that addressed the rising cost of housing, health care, groceries, child care and fuel.
The news conference at the Capitol attended by Democrats from the House and Senate followed Monday’s messaging effort by Republican leaders in both legislative chambers and preceded Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly’s State of the State speech Wednesday night. The Democratic legislators didn’t release a set of specific bills that could advance their cost-of-living agenda.
Senate Minority Leader Dinah Sykes repeated a prominent GOP talking point during the 2024 election cycle that many Kansans were struggling to keep up financially as escalating prices made nearly every aspect of their lives more challenging.
“They don’t believe the economy is working for them,” said Sykes, a Lenexa Democrat. “While Kansans are working hard, often that hard work benefits shareholders and corporations — leaving workers and their families behind. That is wrong. Everything we do this session should be focused on making life more affordable.”
She said legislation put forward by GOP lawmakers should be scrutinized according to a fundamental question. The litmus test: Would it make life more affordable for Kansans?
Under that metric, Sykes said the renewed push by Republicans to divert state tax dollars from K-12 public schools to private schools would fail. She said the same answer would apply to rehashed legislative proposals to repeal voting rights, including use of ballot drop boxes and the three-day grace period for mail ballots to be counted after Election Day.
House Minority Leader Brandon Woodard, also a Lenexa Democrat, said the minority party would strive to raise the state’s minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. He didn’t, however, identify a target for elevating the compensation rate.
“Raising the minimum wage is the first step to addressing income inequality throughout the state,” Woodard said. “At a time when the entire country is feeling the impact of inflation, Kansas must appropriately compensate workers who need it most.”
In three nearby states, the minimum wage is about double the rate in Kansas. Examples: Colorado, $14.81 per hour; Missouri, $13.75; and Nebraska, $13.50. Oklahoma at $7.25 is the equal of Kansas.
Democratic legislators would also encourage passage of measures that expanded quality health care, including broadband access for use in telehealth programs. The state should invest in better access to mental health services, Woodard said.
Woodard said the Legislature should continue to grapple with a 30-year trend that shifted more of the property-tax burden onto residential owners. High property taxes disproportionately burden middle-class homeowners and the elderly on fixed incomes, he said.
He said restoration of a homestead property tax rebate program for renters — it was discontinued more than a decade ago — would be helpful to Kansans who didn’t own a residence.
In terms of property tax relief, Sykes said the Democratic caucus didn’t have a fixed position but wanted results of the upcoming debate to be financially sustainable and offer relief to all Kansans rather than certain economic classes.
Sykes asserted GOP legislative leadership was “misrepresenting what actually happened” on property taxes during closed-door discussions in the June special session. Sykes said the governor set a financial maximum on the total value of reductions that would be acceptable to her in terms of sales, income and property taxes.
“Republican leadership reduced the property tax portion in order to get income taxes,” Sykes said. “They chose to have a lesser amount on property tax in order … to change the income tax structure.”
Hawkins and Masterson, the respective GOP leaders of the House and Senate, maintained it was the governor who insisted property tax reform had to take a back seat to income tax cuts. In the end, the governor signed a $1.2 billion, three-year reform bill that was anchored to income tax reductions.
Kelly is on the record urging the 2025 Legislature to put off another major tax-cut effort until the full impact of last year’s reform was known.
Masterson said the Legislature would attempt to place on a statewide ballot a proposed change to the Kansas Constitution that would put a lid on the rate of increase in property tax collections. The state depends primarily on sales and income taxes for its budget, leaving the property tax to cities, counties and schools.
“What the state can do primarily is a constitutional amendment that would create caps and change the processes in which that’s affecting people. People see these rapid appraisal increases, which turns into rapid tax increases,” Masterson said.
Sykes, on the other hand, said it could be a mistake to undermine the capacity of local government to operate by depriving municipalities of property tax revenue.
“What we do in Topeka cannot cause more harm to our cities and counties,” she said. “We want the firefighter to come. We want the police to be able to. We want good roads. We have to partner with them and work collaboratively.”
Senate Bill 1, which passed by overwhelming bipartisan margins during the special session in June, included an increase in the amount of residential property exempted from the statewide property tax that helped fund K-12 public schools. The school-finance law was changed starting in the 2024 tax year so the exemption from the 20-mill levy for K-12 schools increased to $75,000, up from $42,000.
Hawkins said Republicans and Democrats in the House were frustrated because Kelly stiff-armed the opportunity to enact bigger property tax adjustments. He expected changes during the 2025 session to be approved with bipartisan majorities.
“Democrats … have said they will be voting for property tax relief,” Hawkins said during an interview on KCUR. “Will all of them? No. There’s some of them that will follow the governor. If the governor tells them, ‘No, don’t do it.’ But there are going to be some that are a little bit more independent-minded that realize it is a very important thing for the people of Kansas.”