By Gene Meyer
January 14, 2010

(KansasReporter) TOPEKA, Kan. - Kansas Senate tax committee members Thursday snubbed proposed sales and tobacco tax increases that Gov. Mark Parkinson says are needed to balance the state's battered budget.

Members of the Senate's Assessment and Taxation Committee declined a request presented by Joan Wagnon, the state's revenue secretary to bring the tax proposals to the Senate floor for legislative debate. 

After rejecting by a 4-2 vote a proposal to consider the proposed tobacco tax increases, none of the six Republicans and two Democrats on the committee volunteered to introduce a motion to consider the sales tax and other proposals that Parkinson outlined earlier this week in his State of the State address to the legislature.

Despite Thursday's rejection, the Senate undoubtedly will consider the governor's proposals in some form, said Senate Majority Leader Derek Schmidt, an Independence Republican and one of the four tax committee members voting against introducing the tobacco tax proposal.

Republicans Julia Lynn and Karin Brownlee of Olathe  and Terrie Huntington of Fairway also voted against introducing the tax plan in the Senate, while Democrats Tom Holland of Baldwin City and Chris Steineger of Kansas City voted for the introduction. Committee chairman Les Donovan, a Wichita Republican and Bob Marshall, a Fort Scott Republican, did not vote.

"We owe the governor the courtesy of considering his proposals even if I do not plan to support them," Schmidt said.

Members of the House Taxation Committee earlier in the day approved Wagnon's request, which means it could become part of final legislation that the Senate will consider too. Or the proposals could be introduced later by another senator.

Wagnon said she believed that Parkinson's proposal will be considered once legislators more fully understand the gravity of the state's $400 million budget imbalance.

"It's going to take time for them to wrestle with the budget before coming to the govenor's proposal," she said.