In this episode of WichitaLiberty.TV: Debate expert Rodney Wren joins Bob Weeks to discuss the presidential debates and nomination contest. View below, or click here to view in high definition at YouTube. Episode 105, broadcast December 27, 2015.
Todd Johnson, Chair, Sedgwick County Republican PartyKansas Senate President Susan Wagle spoke to members and guests of the Wichita Pachyderm Club on Friday December 18, 2015. She addressed challenges the legislature will face when the session starts in January.
As in years past, a survey finds that when Kansans are asked questions about the level of school spending, few have the correct information. From Kansas Policy Institute.
Survey Finds Kansans Misled on School Spending
December 14, 2015 — Wichita — Kansas Policy Institute released a new Survey USA Poll of 509 registered voters in Kansas showing a significant disconnect between voters’ perception of Kansas school spending and true expenditures.
The survey found 47% of Kansans believe per-pupil funding has dropped more than 5% in the last 5 years. Another 15% believe it has dropped less than 5%. In fact, school funding has increased by 6.4%. Only 7% of those surveyed believe there have been such increases.
“The narrative coming out of school districts is intentionally misleading,” said Kansas Policy Institute President Dave Trabert. “District officials aided by their government funded lobbyists are telling parents and students that because they didn’t receive increases as big as they want, they are being ‘cut’. This is patently false.”
Citizens have also been misled about actual funding amounts. The survey found 61% of Kansans believe per-pupil funding from the state is less than $5,000 when in reality, it was $8,567 last year; 61% also believe total funding is less than $10,000, while actual funding was $13,124 per pupil. Less than 10% of Kansans identified true funding levels. “Knowing the extent to which school districts have misled Kansans, it’s no wonder that so many are upset about school funding,” said KPI President Dave Trabert.
However, when voters are faced with the factual data of per pupil spending and cash reserve balances, a majority reject the idea of paying more taxes to fund schools, 50% somewhat or strongly disagree to 41% somewhat or strongly agree.
“Every Kansan wants to do what is best for their child’s education. Unfortunately, too many Kansans haven’t been trusted with the complete truth and won’t have the opportunity to make sure their children are in the best possible situation to succeed,” said KPI Vice President and Policy Director James Franko.
The survey also found that 66% agree, somewhat or strongly, that spending on out-of-the-classroom expenses should be provided on a more efficient, regional basis to divert savings back into classroom spending. only 21% are somewhat or strongly opposed.Support for this common-sense concept extends across all geographic and ideological boundaries, yet local school boards remain fiercely opposed.
“Kansans need to know the truth about record-setting school funding”, said Dave Trabert. “Only through an informed citizenry can we create sound economic policy and improve education outcomes for our students.”
The survey was of 509 registered voters with a 4.4% margin of error. Full results of the survey can be viewed here.
An interactive visualization of employment in metropolitan areas.
Growth in Employment by MSA. Wichita is the bottom line. Click for larger version.I’ve gathered employment data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, an agency of the United States Department of Commerce, for all available metropolitan areas and present it in an interactive visualization using Tableau Public. In the visualization you may use several different presentations of the data and filter for specific areas and industries. The series are presented as the percentage change since the first values, so that relative growth, rather than magnitude, of employment is shown.
In the nearby example we can see that Wichita –- the bottom line — has performed poorly compared to some peers of interest.
In this episode of WichitaLiberty.TV: Radio talk show host Joseph Ashby visits the WichitaLiberty.TV studios to help us understand the Republican presidential debate and nomination contest. View below, or click here to view in high definition at YouTube. Episode 104, broadcast December 20, 2015.
An interactive visualization of a new data series from the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
The Bureau of Economic Analysis is an agency of the United States Department of Commerce. BEA describes its role as “Along with the Census Bureau, BEA is part of the Department’s Economics and Statistics Administration. BEA produces economic accounts statistics that enable government and business decision-makers, researchers, and the American public to follow and understand the performance of the Nation’s economy. To do this, BEA collects source data, conducts research and analysis, develops and implements estimation methodologies, and disseminates statistics to the public.”
This week BEA issued a release of a new series of data: gross domestic product (GDP) by state for 21 industry sectors on a quarterly basis. BEA defines GDP as “the value of the goods and services produced by the nation’s economy less the value of the goods and services used up in production.” It is the value of the final goods and services produced.
In describing this data, BEA says “These new data provide timely information on how specific industries contribute to accelerations, decelerations, and turning points in economic growth at the state level, including key information about the impact of differences in industry composition across states.” This data series starts in 2005. The announcement of the release of this data from BEA is here.
I’ve gathered the data for this series for all states and present it in an interactive visualization using Tableau Public. I present the series in real dollars, meaning that BEA adjusted the numbers to account for changes in the price level, or inflation.
In the visualization you may use several different presentations of the data and filter for specific states or industries. The series are presented as percentage change over time since the first values, so that growth, rather than magnitude, of GDP is shown.
In this episode of WichitaLiberty.TV: The City of Wichita’s attitude towards empowering citizens, government spending through tax credits, and school choice in Kansas. View below, or click here to view on YouTube. Episode 103, broadcast December 13, 2015.
A Wichita economist and attorney offers advice to a committee of the Kansas Legislature on reforming Kansas schools for student achievement.
This week saw the third meeting of the 2015 Special Committee on K-12 Student Success for the Kansas Legislature. Of special interest was the short testimony of Robert Litan, a Wichita economist and attorney. His testimony summarized some of the important problems with Kansas public schools and points to ways that Kansas can move forward in providing education to schoolchildren. His written testimony may be viewed here.
In arguing for starting with a “clean sheet” instead of merely tweaking the current formula, Litan wrote: “The reason is quite simple. Despite continued increases in real spending per pupil in the state, educational outcomes in Kansas are not improving nor are the gaps between the performance of students from low-income families and all other students.”
He also touches on several ways that Kansas schools could improve efficiency in their operations without consolidating school districts. The savings could be several hundred million dollars per year, a significant sum in Kansas.
Kansas needs to improve the performance of schools, focusing particularly on closing the achievement gap between students from low-income families and others, said Litan. A possible problem, he writes, is that the additional money allocated for “at-risk” students may not be spent in ways specifically targeted to those students. A problem is lack of tracking systems to see how this money is spent. (The at-risk weighting is substantial. For its first few years, starting in 1992, the weighting added five percent to state funding for each student classified as “at-risk.” It rose over the years, reaching 45.6 percent in 2008.)
Litan also touches on the importance of having good teachers and the controversies surrounding how to evaluate teachers. But it is important to reward good teachers, he writes.
Cost savings might also be used to reward school districts that provide more student attendance time: “Other things being equal, more schooling time should enhance student performance.” Of note, this year’s agreement with the teachers union for the Wichita school district reduces the school year by two days.
Finally, the importance of school choice, which is nearly non-existent in Kansas. A new funding formula needs to allow for school choice:
Finally, there are limits to how much any change in the way funding for schools is allocated among districts can affect student performance. That is because today parents’ and students’ ability to choose their public education provider is very limited, or non-existent.
That is not true in some other states, where parents and their children have more choices, as they do in other spheres of life for other goods and services. While broader choice is not directly on the table of today’s hearing, hopefully any changes this Committee and the Legislature may make in funding will not penalize any new schools that may be formed in the wake of any possible future change in Kansas law governing charter schools.
A records request to the City of Wichita results in data as well as insight into the city’s attitude towards empowering citizens with data.
I asked the City of Wichita for checkbook spending records and received data for 2015 through September 25, as I asked. I’ve made the data available in a visualization using Tableau Public. Click here to access the visualization. (A visual guide for using the visualization is at the end of this article.)
Analyzing this data requires a bit of local knowledge. For example, there is a vendor named “Visit Wichita” that started to receive monthly payments in March. What about payments for January and February? Those were made to a vendor named “Go Wichita,” which then changed its name to “Visit Wichita.”
Similarly, there are payments made to both “Westar Energy” and “Westar Energy — EDI.” These are the same entities, just as “Visit Wichita” and “Go Wichita” are the same entity. To the city’s credit, the matching pairs have the same vendor number, which is good. But resolving this requires a different level of analysis.
There are interesting entries. For example, the city usually sends a few hundred dollars per month to the Kansas Turnpike Authority. Then in July, the city paid $3.7 million to KTA. A quick search of city council agenda packets didn’t reveal any reason for this.
Of note, it looks like there were 474 checks issued in amounts $20 or less. Bank of America has estimated that the total cost of sending a business check ranges from $4 to $20.
The records request
Wichita spending data from 2013.The city supplied this data in an Excel spreadsheet, in an arrangement that can easily be analyzed in Excel or loaded into other programs. This is a step forward. Two years ago, Wichita could supply data of limited utility. What was supplied to me was data in pdf form, and as images, not text. It would be difficult to translate the image data into machine-readable text, and even more difficult to reorganize it to a useful arrangement or format for analysis.
Denver open checkbook.
I had to pay $24.00 to the city for this data. That’s a problem. It is by now routine for governmental agencies to post spending data like this, but not at the City of Wichita. When I inquired, city officials told me that the present financial management system “does not include many modern system features such as an ‘open checkbook.’” An “open checkbook” refers to a modern web interface where citizens can query for specific data and perhaps perform other analysis. An example is Denver’s open checkbook.
While the next-generation Wichita financial system will probably have such a feature, there’s no reason why citizens can’t experience some of the benefits now. The spreadsheet of spending data like that I paid for could easily be posted on the city’s website on a monthly basis. People like myself will take that data and make it more useful, as I did. There is no reason why this should not be happening.
When I learned of the fee for these records, I asked for a waiver, sending this to the city’s records official:
I’d like to ask for a waiver of the requested fee. I ask this because check register data is an example of records that many governmental agencies make freely available on their websites. The Wichita Public School District and Sedgwick County are two local examples.
I’d like to also call attention to the U.S. Freedom of Information Act, which allows for fee waivers in some circumstances: “…fee waivers are limited to situations in which a requester can show that the disclosure of the requested information is in the public interest because it is likely to contribute significantly to public understanding of the operations and activities of the government and is not primarily in the commercial interest of the requester.”
I suggest that the records I am requesting will indeed “contribute significantly to public understanding of the operations and activities of the government,” and that it is in the public interest of the people of Wichita that these records be freely available.
I received an answer:
Mr. Weeks,
Your request for waiver of fees is denied. KORA allows fees to be collected prior to finding and producing the document you seek. KSA 45-218(f). The extensive statute setting out how fees are to be determined, KSA 45-219, does not contain any provision for waiver in the manner you suggest.
The City will provide the document to you upon payment as invoiced.
Sincerely,
Jay C. Hinkel,
Deputy City Attorney
Mr. Hinkel is absolutely correct. Governmental agencies in Kansas have the right to charge for records, and the Kansas statutes do not mention the waiving of fees as do the federal statutes. But the Kansas Open Records Act does not require cities to charge for providing records, especially for records that the city should already be providing. Especially when citizens are willing to take that data and make it better, at no charge to the city.
Hinkel provided a lawyer’s answer. Here, however, is the public policy the city promotes, from a Wichita city news release from 2013:
“The City Council has stressed the importance of transparency for this organization,” City Manager Robert Layton said. “We’re honored to receive a Sunny Award and we will continue to empower and engage citizens by providing information necessary to keep them informed on the actions their government is taking on their behalf.”
The importance of transparency. The city wants to empower and engage citizens by providing information. Well. I offered to “contribute significantly to public understanding of the operations and activities of the government,” but had to pay to do so.
When I asked city officials for clarification of why I had to pay to receive these records, communications staff told me: “I should note that the City has won multiple awards for openness and citizen participation, but City leaders recognize this work is never done. They strive each and every day to become more open and transparent and will continue to do so.”
I must disagree. This is not “open and transparent.” This is not how to “empower and engage” the people of Wichita. Not even close.
