I have some good news to report, today AT&T Inc. announced that four high schools and organizations in Kansas, including Butler Community College, will receive AT&T High School Success grants totaling more than $140,000 to combat the nation’s high school dropout crisis.
Butler Community College will receive a $34,788 grant to support a plan for school improvement that addresses high school retention, success and workforce readiness, and benefiting students in Butler and Cowley counties.
“AT&T believes private investment to help stem the high school dropout rate is critically important, said Dan Jacobsen, president of AT&T Kansas. “Our concern is with making sure the workforce of the future is fully prepared for the full spectrum of US employment opportunities. Working with passionate and committed educators, we want to help students make the connection between education and future life success and develop a labor force with the right skills to compete in a worldwide digital economy.”
Overall, AT&T announced that more than 170 schools and nonprofit organizations nationwide will receive almost $12 million in competitive grants from the AT&T Foundation that are designed to support high school retention programs for at-risk students.
Direct financial incentives helped create more than 25,000 Kansas jobs over the past five years was reported by Kansas Department of Commerce, following a review of activity covering 2003-07.
The review examined 37 state and federally funded economic development programs within Commerce, of which 17 provide direct grants to business.
Among the best known of these programs are the Investments in Major Projects and Comprehensive Training Program, Kansas Existing Industry Expansion program, Kansas Economic Opportunity Initiatives Fund, Kansas Industrial Training program, and Kansas Industrial Retraining program.
Together, these programs accounted for:
- 25,320 new jobs, generating more than $3.57 billion in new payroll and $103.6 million in new employee withholding tax.
- 40,564 retained jobs, generating more than $7.67 billion in retained payroll and $222.4 million in withholding taxes.
- Capital investment of $540.3 million
- 23,544 new employees trained and 38,743 existing employees retrained.
In the agriculture area close to $5 million was reported by program applicants, good for more than 2-to-1 match from the private sector on invested public dollars.
We often miss the news that by spending some seed money and offering existing business incentives to grow and expand by training or retraining we keep our economy moving along. Just imagine how bad the news could be if we were not proactive!
Last week I attended the Interim Joint Tax Committee meeting in Topeka where we received briefings on a variety of tax topics. One of particular interest was the taxation and registration of water vessels.
1. Registration and numbering guidelines must be approved by the US Coast Guars for a state to be eligible for Federal Reimbursement.
2. Registration is required of a vessel if propelled by machinery or sail and used on public waters.
3. Registration pertains to state of principal use and not residence of the owner.
4. Vessel allowed operating in Kansas under another approved numbering system for up to 60 consecutive days without having to be registered to the State of Kansas.
5. Kansas charges a value for vessel property tax at 30% of the value of the vessel times the mill levy
6. These conditions set up the citizen of Kansas owning boats with a high value to seek registration in other state regardless if the boat is utilized most of the calendar year in the state of Kansas.
7. This causes our citizens to make a wrong choice and considered as an outrageous tax for an item utilized by most no more than 3-4 months out of a calendar year.
Kansas currently is showing a registration total of 93,900 vessels while 8 years ago our registration was over 100,000 vessels. 64% of the registered boats in Kansas have an average age of 13 years or older. Most other state uses some type of excise tax in place of a property tax.
The top ranked counties for boater registration consists of; Sedgwick 11,488 or 12%, Johnson at 9,646 or 10%, Shawnee with 4,547 or 5%, and Butler with 3,082 or 3%.
It is unknown as to how the dollars generated from vessel property tax’s are spent by the counties, the registration dollars maintained by the Kansas Wildlife and Parks are utilized by matching funds from federal sources for putting money back towards programs directly relating to the recreational boater.
Some suggested changes include eliminate the property tax for some other form of tax that is more agreeable with boat owners, begin a process to title boats, the counties could keep fees as collected through their department of motor vehicles. Sales tax generated from one individual on a boat sale could be collected and enforced by the county when a title is submitted, The County would keep these dollars.
A portion of the registration fees collected by KDWP would be set aside annually and distributed to the counties according to the number of vessels on the registration rolls. This is a user fee concept vs. a tax concept.
I provide the information in these weekly updates to keep you abreast as to what is going on in the Capitol. I want to know what you think and ask that you contact me at home 1115 Rim Rock Road, El Dorado 67042, 316-321-2087, or email johng@carlisleinc.net, grange@house.state.ks.us. You may read previous editions of my update at www.johngrange.net. Thanks, John.
Back to Updates
