From the Alvin and Rosalie Sara Check studio PBS Kansas Presents Kansas Week, a controversial school voucher program becomes law in Kansas.

Public education advocates are sounding the alarm over the Trump administration's plan.

Plus, a new downtown Wichita revitalization project brings promises of economic growth but raises new fears about displacing the city's homeless population.

But first, a financial shockwave hits Topeka, as latest forecast shows the state budget plunging deep into the red.

That's what we're talking about right now on Kansas wage.

And welcome to Kansas Week I'm Anthony Powell sitting in once again for Jared Cirillo.

A financial shockwave is hitting Kansas as new numbers reveal the state budget is bleeding hundreds of millions of dollars.

Latest revenue forecasts show Kansas will take in far less income tax than expected.

Plunging the state deep into the red for the next five years.

Economists say the state will spend hundreds of millions more than it collects, rapidly eating into its $2 billion surplus.

Forecasters blame declining tax revenues and economic risks from the Iran military conflict, though Boeing's re acquisition of Wichita Spirit AeroSystems remains a bright spot for the state's economy.

The late timing of these numbers is sparking bitter political clashes at the Capitol.

Governor Laura Kelly blasting lawmakers for rushing out of Topeka and denying pay raises for state workers.

But House Speaker Dan Hawkins defended the budget, saying it protects taxpayers and sets Kansas up for long term success.

Okay, here to discuss this and some of the week's other state and local news is state Representative John Carmichael.

Former Wichita City Councilman Brian Frye, attorney and political commentator Matthew Agnew, and publisher of the Cali Courier, traveler David Seaton.

Okay.

John Carmichael, I will start with you.

What is behind the revenue shortfall and what should be done about it?

I know that's a multi-layered question, and I'll try to do it in a politically neutral way if I can, but I'll slide a little bit into being a Democrat.

That's okay.

This doesn't come as any great surprise.

It's only a question of the timing.

How soon is it going to hit or was it going to hit and what this latest revenue estimate is consistent with what we've been seeing in the long term forecasts.

It's just happening a little bit quicker probably do.

And in fact, the people with the consensus Revenue Estimating Group explained that, you know, factors with a war going on, oil prices, the past impact of tariffs, etc.

may be impacting numbers on a hopefully temporary basis.

But in the long term, the problem is State of Kansas is spending more money than it takes in.

Yeah.

What about property tax revenues?

We were talking a little bit about that before this show.

Is that playing into it in your opinion.

Well property taxes in Kansas go to fund state and local governments.

And there's a 20 mill levy on on real property that supports the schools.

But the operations of Kansas government are paid for with sales taxes, income taxes and federal transfer payments.

And so that's not where the revenue is going down.

This estimating group, estimates shows that income tax revenue is decreasing.

And that's the biggest player in these numbers we're seeing now.

That shouldn't come as a surprise when you lower the income taxes on the most wealthy people in society, you're going to see decrease overall in income tax revenues unless your economy expands at such a rate to make up the difference.

Okay, Brian, we'll move on to you.

In your opinion, did the budget that the Republicans passed set this state up for success, as Dan Hawkins has claimed?

Well, they certainly tried to until the governor vetoed it.

I mean, they were cutting $700 million.

But my colleague is right.

Mike, I guess I say colleague, I'm no longer a politician.

I'm a recovering politician, my friend.

Thank you for your show calling.

Yeah, He's right.

We have a spending problem.

We need to get a handle on that.

And then we have a growth problem.

We need to get the state more people, more people paying income taxes, more people paying sales taxes, more companies paying corporate taxes.

Those are the two issues that we need to address.

Stop the population, grow or not grow as opposed to growth, you know, exit, exit.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Stop the population exit.

Bring more people to the state.

We'll get more people adding to the revenue and then cut spending.

Why are people leaving the state?

That's what.

Oh, we're a high tech state, which is one.

Two.

There's been other opportunities that we're not growing the industry enough, giving variety of industry choices, quality of life.

We have a great quality life, but we don't sell it hard enough.

So those are all issues.

Well, I'm doing my part.

As I mentioned to you, I'm from Los Angeles.

I tell people all the time, friends I still have back there, if you moved to Wichita, your quality of life would be much better.

That's true.

So living will go down.

Oh, taxes will go down this time believably.

Matthew Agnew, in your estimation, what will be the consequence of this budget deficit?

I mean, I think on the short term, we're looking at, you know, obviously a spend down of our surplus.

So we've got $2 billion in surplus.

But we our elected officials have have worked hard to get us there.

Right.

So I see this not necessarily as like an alarming moment, but a moment of notice, a moment that plates are places our elected officials in a space where they know that going into the next legislative session, there's got to be focus on this issue.

And I think, you know, when we see tightening budgets and then gets into a question of priorities, like what are our priorities as an electorate?

And you're starting to see both sides frame those out.

You see Governor Kelly saying, well, what about, you know, state workers and our education system and you have, you know, the conservative member saying, well, what about the taxpayers?

Right.

So I think it just forces us into competing priorities.

And that's sort of what I think our next legislative sessions will look like is how are we going to address, you know, the limitations on what we can spend our priorities on?

Yeah.

Okay.

David.

And a lot of people are pointing the finger at Republicans.

But in your estimation, do Democrats share some of this blame as well?

Well, I suppose there's plenty of blame to go around depending on your point of view.

But, it's interesting to me that kind of the, the history of this, you know, the, the surplus was building and building, I think, you know, during the pandemic years when a bunch of money was coming in and a bunch of federal money was coming into and, and it got to $2 million.

I think that's about where it is now.

Is that right, John?

And, so sort of an idea that we're flush and I think there was a big push to cut taxes, give money back to the taxpayer.

And it wasn't just Republicans who supported that.

I think there were some Democrats did, too.

I think Kelly Kelly signed a bill in 2024, budget 2024 that consolidated brackets and lowered the income or income tax a little bit.

But there's been more of that push by Republicans obviously, now because they thought we're flush week.

We got plenty of money.

But now I think I agree with the sentiment here, though it is not a huge shock or, no need to be too alarmists.

Probably not.

But some judicious decisions probably need to be made.

Of course, gut pay for schools.

That's the biggest part of the budget, right?

And the court mandate to pay for schools and pay for quality education.

So that creates a tension between spending and, and and looking out for the taxpayers, the Constitution that mandates it.

We chose these rules.

The court enforces those rules.

Yeah.

So also seen a lot of revenue forecasts that were under projected.

Absolutely.

So how much they pattern of those how much faith do we have that this is an accurate number.

If you want my opinion I think I think we can rely on these numbers as being pretty legitimate.

But any economic forecast is subject to change based on unforeseen events.

But I think that the numbers and the estimators are doing it honest.

We made an adjustment to some of the values that went into that because we were seeing so many estimates with us receiving more money than we had estimated.

But at some point bubbles burst.

And I think we're looking at that now.

That's what's happening.

So what do you think the state should be doing to attract more people to to come to Kansas?

I can tell you I moved to Wichita in 2004, and the last 20 years, the area has totally transformed in terms of growth.

It seems like a lot more young people are staying put.

But obviously we need more people to come to the state.

What what should the state be doing running ads and other states?

Well, what do you think the answer is?

We actually did that.

It didn't work.

Didn't work.

Isn't it really more of a rural small town?

It is a population problem.

The metro centers, right?

Right.

Primary but still flood, which is why the only about 2 to 3% growth.

But the Wichita metro area which not.

So I think they said that they took Johnson County out of that.

Like the demographics of growth for the state.

We would see no growth.

Right?

Right.

That's probably right.

The biggest growth in the state is Johnson County and the northeastern part of the state, Wichita, Sedgwick County comes in, I think.

Second, now you can look at a particular small community and say, well, it's had a dramatic growth and that can be only a few hundred citizens across the Goddard.

Mayes.

Yep.

Well, and where I live, our Kansas City, I mean, it's there's no doubt that, you know, immigration into the beef plant there and other plants there has stabilized the population.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

Good discussion.

We're going to move on.

Now our next story is about a major shift in Kansas education, as the state officially joins the Trump administration's controversial new school voucher style program.

I see John bowing his head there when I said that Republican lawmakers overrode Governor Laura Kelly's veto to pass the plan, which offers tax credits for donating to K through 12 scholarship organizations.

Supporters say the move expands school choice and brings federal dollars to Kansas without draining the state budget.

But public education advocates are sounding the alarm.

The Kansas Association of School Boards warns that strict federal rules are stacked against public schools, meaning private institutions will reap the rewards while taxpayer revenue takes a hit.

The new system is set to take effect in 2027.

So Matthew Agnew, we'll go to you first.

In your estimation, is this voucher program a winner or loser for the state of Kansas?

You know, I'm a big believer that the any time we can take the federal dollars that we give to to Washington, D.C., and put them back into the state without cost to our state government, that's a win.

But more importantly, I honestly don't see this as a voucher program.

You know, when you look at what we traditionally consider vouchers, it's this idea that we're taking taxpayer dollars and shifting it into, like wealthy households that will select their kids to be at private schools.

This is a tax credit that's directed towards scholarship programs.

And most scholarship programs are directed towards the low income.

So from my perspective, this is a way to take, you know, money from the wealthy that they give voluntarily that will ultimately benefit low income children.

And so I kind of see it as something that we can both support left and right.

John isn't giving options, more options for schooling a good thing?

Matthew and I are going to have to disagree on this.

The first thing is tax credits are free.

A tax credit you use just like cash to pay on your taxes.

So when you hand out tax credits, it decreases overall revenues.

Just what we were talking about a few moments ago.

So it's not free to do that.

It's not free federal money.

There may be some match I don't disagree, but it costs tax dollars when you get a tax credit and pay your taxes with that instead of with your check.

The second thing is these programs are designed to have to be supported or sponsored by foundations or charitable organizations.

A lot of western Kansas legislators, Republicans didn't vote for this because there aren't those programs.

These programs are concentrated Wichita, Johnson County, Topeka.

Lawrence.

They're not where they're going to be available to all the kids in Kansas on an equal basis.

Then we can, of course, talk about if you take money from one pocket and you put it into another, then how do you replace that money?

And no, this is not a voucher.

You don't trade it in for ten weeks of attendance.

So it doesn't take money directly out of the school districts pot of money.

But eventually that money comes.

Either taxpayers are going to pay more, or we're going to have to make cuts somewhere else to make up for the cost of the program.

This program is not that large.

It's not the first program.

There's already a program that's not quite as beneficial, to students as this one is.

But I think the bottom line of it is it's a bad precedent.

Private schools should fund themselves through private donations, and we, as the public, should jointly fund our public schools, whether we have kids or not.

So plenty of money.

There's plenty of money available to the private schools through the private sector.

Well, I'm not saying there's plenty of money.

I mean, obviously schools need larger endowments and so on, but the concept of private education, it ought to be privately funded.

If you want to have public education, then you can't publicly fund public education.

But they would sitting, in your estimation, who's likely to benefit the most?

Who might suffer the most?

Well, I suppose the, the person giving the charitable donation will benefit by getting their money back then, for sure.

And, but, you know, if the, if it it for the motive of a good cause to try to help somebody of the lower income status get to, pay for schooling, you know, I mean, that would be a good thing, but the, there's questions, I think, surrounding whether or not the money could go actually to public school students as well, especially maybe kids with special needs, because they have extra costs.

And but I'm not sure how that if that actually is the case or not, but that's one of the arguments or is actually is this doesn't go to fund special needs and public schools.

That's although some people made those claims.

I don't think that's correct.

Yeah, that seems to be a debate.

But yeah, it's not a voucher program per se.

I think that, it as I was studying on the issue, when you give us the topic, you know, it seems like it probably could be a good thing.

I think overall, I mean, I think that that however, however, the point I wanted to make was, I think the rules say that it can go to students whose, whose parents make 3,300% of the median income, which is a lot of money.

Actually, it's not the average.

It's the median income three times a year.

And this is just like low income people for so so it actually could tilt maybe toward the people who don't need it as much, which is one of the concerns about vouchers that are publicly, publicly funded themselves.

Right.

So it seems like it's kind of, anybody's guess how this is going to play out.

Right?

Brian, we'll go to you.

If you think there's a better solution to this, to him, know I'm certainly not a subject matter expert on this.

Both of my children are adults now, so I haven't had to get back into the public school system or deal with any of this for several years.

I don't know the right solution.

Right.

I think the idea of school choice and allowing families to have resourced to choose where their children go to school is a is a valid one.

Is this the right answer?

I don't know, are vouchers the right answer?

I don't know.

I think as we have discussions about how much endowments and reserves our public school systems have, that's a concern.

This seems to be way too much.

So, again, not the subject matter expert.

I'm going to have to be fascinated by this conversation.

I'm going to have to learn a lot more before I can weigh in on what's a better solution.

Well, John, it sounds like what you're saying, and we were talking about this in our earlier discussion, these small towns that are already hurting in terms of people fleeing, they're hurt.

Their schools are hurting too.

And this would just add to the problem, you know, I don't know whether it would add to the problem, but it doesn't help whatever benefit this program has, as I understand it, it's going to be principally for the metropolitan areas, which have the nonprofit school education set up to utilize these vouchers, whereas people in western Kansas can still get the tax credit, but their kids won't get the benefit of the program.

Okay, another good discussion.

We're going to move on now, to this story.

A new development project is coming to downtown Wichita, but it's sparking concerns about the city's homeless population.

Movement music, a nonprofit founded by Chase Coke, plans to transform the block near Second and Emporia.

The effort includes renovating the vacant Sherman Apartments and building a 3000 person music venue.

Well, many welcome the economic boost.

Advocates worry the construction will displace unhoused residents currently staying in that area.

Leaders at the nearby Union Rescue Mission support the project, but they are urging the city to speed up its five year housing plan to better help those who will be forced to move.

All right.

We're going to discuss this now, Brian, in your estimation, is this concern over the unhoused or the homeless justified?

So the city has the city has committed millions of dollars for housing services, wraparound services, including some new shelter facilities.

Getting this part of downtown cleaned up and activated is important.

You drive through this section of downtown Wichita, and it's not a good look.

And that's not what we should be allowing people to be spending their nights and days on the streets and in the doorways of private property and and on vacant lots that cost, those owners a lot of money.

So to see this investment is fantastic.

It along with the city's plan to address the homeless issue that which they have been working on with Second Light and, some of the other facilities.

Yes.

Can it be sped up?

Absolutely.

It should be sped up.

And that's going to take more private sector donations and more, public support for those programs.

But getting this activated and built up, that's a win for Wichita.

Got it.

John, do you agree?

I agree with Brian.

I think, the fact is, is March closed right now?

Nobody's being housed in the area.

And frankly, when it was open, it wasn't good housing.

Correct.

Anyway.

So yes, there may be impacts on the housing or unhoused population, but not because the mayor's being closed.

It's two separate issues in many ways.

We've got to deal with homelessness.

We've got to deal with people living on the streets.

And at the same time, we don't want to see a building like that stand vacant for 10 or 15 years, because then it will be the wrecking ball and it'll do nobody any good.

Right?

Good point David.

It's always that seems like when stories like this come out, that's always trying to strike that balance between how do we, you know, spurring development that could be good for downtown balanced with the rights of the homeless.

What's your take on the social issues.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, not being which saw not knowing all the details it the pictures look lovely the other time I think we've all, grown that we probably need to be a little skeptical of pretty developed pictures by developers.

Architectural rendering.

Sometimes not photographs.

Right?

Sometimes.

Sometimes they pan out, sometimes they don't.

But but one of my questions was this privately asking for any public investment?

I didn't think at this point I've not heard of it.

Not now.

Yeah, but it would be about the first project that I can think of, of any kind that hasn't asked for it, for the general.

I need to ask that question.

And if there is, if or there might be that, then maybe that does trigger a little more responsibility on the city's part to take care of some of the social aspects and homeless issues that I don't I don't know the details about Wichita's homeless plan.

I know it's been an issue for a long time.

And yeah, I think that was part of that sales tax proposal that failed too.

Right.

But yeah, yeah.

But I think what we do know about helping homeless people in the best way possible is that it does take a big investment, like housing, wraparound services like mental health and addiction rehab.

Yeah.

So it's a big cost, a lot of money.

Matthew, we'll go over to you.

What's your take on it?

You know, I think we have this very common problem in Wichita where we're like, well, because we have a bad thing, we can't have a good thing.

And I'm just like, you know, we can have good things and address our bad problems at the same time.

Two things can be possible at the same time.

That's right.

And I think at looking at urban development and saying, well, shucks, what's going to happen to the homeless population is a little too simplistic.

It doesn't take into consideration the fact that this will drive additional economic growth, which will allow us a bigger tax base to be able to take care of these things.

Great.

But the second thing is, is, you know, Chase's been very clear that they're dedicating at least 40 of these units to low income housing.

Like that's the other solution to this problem, right?

Like we've got to have houses for those for the for the unhoused to be to be placed.

Right.

And so I'm not sure it's as simplistic as being, you know, tossing out the baby with the bathwater here of, of, you know, the homeless being, getting a bad a bad deal out of the, the opportunity.

Well said.

We'll leave it there.

Okay.

Now we're our final story into a story that got a lot of attention this week.

And it's very personal to the staff here at PBS Kansas.

We are mourning the tragic loss of one of our own, 25 year old Ivy Unruh.

There you see her.

Investigators say the marine veteran and PBS Kansas broadcast engineer was gunned down last Friday by her estranged husband in a devastating act of domestic violence.

Ivy is remembered by everyone here at PBS Kansas as a talented, kind and dedicated colleague and friend.

But even in tragedy, Ivy continues to serve others.

Her family says her final act was the heroic gift of organ donation, a decision that get this has already saved the lives of six six different people.

Fellow veterans honored that sacrifice with the flag line during an honor walk at Wesley Medical Center.

Ivy's estranged husband now faces First-Degree murder charges as local advocates warn of a dangerous rise in severe domestic violence cases across Sedgwick County.

And this story really is resonating worldwide.

More than two dozen news organizations across the globe have covered this story, so it's clearly resonating.

And just, you know, I was in local news for 18 years, and I hate to think about how many domestic violence tragedies I covered.

It's just a problem that just doesn't seem to go away.

If anybody wants to weigh in on what we can do to try to bring the numbers down, the silence is deafening.

And that tells you what a problem it is.

You know, in those in the legislature, they come to us regularly wanting more funding for domestic violence abuse prevention programs.

And they I mean, people who run these programs.

And secondarily, we hear over on the corrections side, we want to have people want stronger penalties, thinking that locking people up in these situations longer will deter.

And it doesn't.

We know that doesn't work.

It is a large societal problem and it can't be totally cured by government.

There's roles for counselors, churches just amongst ourselves and our friends.

There's so much that needs to be done and it seems to just get worse and worse.

I don't have the answer.

It seems like the mental health crisis is just getting worse and worse and worse.

And like you say, it's the tougher laws.

I'm not sure people who are in the heat of a mental health crisis are thinking about the punishment.

Know anybody else want to give a thought?

Yeah, I mean, I'd say, you know, first off, your family.

Sorry for their loss.

Of course, that sucks really badly.

I'm a childhood victim of domestic violence, so it's something that touches me very closely.

And we are seeing an increase in domestic violence in our community.

But it's it's also becoming more public.

You know, we had a woman dragged out of her vehicle, the one of the busiest intersections in our state, and shot to death in broad daylight.

That was just last year.

And then several months later, we had our police chief say, we've got a substantial community problem, and the police aren't the ones to solve it, and they can't solve it alone.

And so I think there is more to do.

But I think the biggest suggestion all the time is if you see something, say something.

That's the first step to getting, you know, headed in the right direction on this problem.

All right.

We're going to have to leave it there.

We also want to note in tribute, president and CEO of PBS Kansas Victor Hagstrom has announced the computer server room at PBS Kansas is being named the Ivy.

Unruh Server Room to ensure that Ivy is remembered for his dedication to PBS Kansas.

And again, what a hero organ donation.

Ivy is reminding us all how important, organ donation is as well.

Oh, don't do it on your driver's license.

Google it and fill out the forms.

Because when you're injured, you won't have time to fill them out.

Thank you.

Okay.

Well said.

All right.

We want to say thanks to John Carmichael.

Brian Fry, Matthew Agnew and David Seaton for being here.

You all were great, great discussions on a variety of topics.

We also want to send our thanks out to Keith and CSN for sharing video with us.

Once again, I'm Anthony Powell.

I will be sitting in once again next week for Gerard Cirillo and once again, we look forward to seeing you next week here on campus.

Week.