Freshman senator prepares for upcoming time in office

Archive for Thursday, January 8, 2009

Kelly Kultala

January 8, 2009

After the 5th District Kansas Senate election in November, senator-elect Kelly Kultala hit a lull.

She had just defeated Republican Steve Fitzgerald in a battle she described as tough and intense, but what followed were thoughts of “what now?”

It wasn’t until she went to the Statehouse in Topeka for a leadership meeting that her new position really started to sink in. She and her future-fellow senators were taken into the Senate chambers and while sitting at the desk of her predecessor, Kultala got a reality check.

“I sat at the desk and looked around the Senate chambers and thought of all the people who have gone before me; the speeches, the legislation, everything that had been done in that room,” Kultala recalled. “Then it hit me. ‘Oh my god, what have I done.’ That’s really when all of it came together, and now I’m excited and nervous and scared to death and ready for it all.”

The freshman senator, who is making history as the first woman to serve in the 5th District, will be sworn in Monday. Among orientations, mock Senate sessions, meetings and searches for a Topeka residence, Kultala has been preparing herself for what’s to come.

She started by making her way through the “mountains of mail” that she said quadrupled once she was elected. Through that mail, a true sense of what she’s up against when it comes to the suffering state budget hit her.

What started as introductions to organizations and requests for funding have quickly turned into requests by organizations to not cut their funding.

“They’re no longer asking for money,” she said.” They’re making sure they don’t get hurt.”

Kultala said she had already started her homework to understand and deal with budget issues. Her knowledge of the topic will become even more important because of her appointment to the Ways and Means Committee, which makes recommendations to the Legislature regarding the annual state budget.

While the state’s billion-dollar deficit will continue to be at the forefront of Kultala’s mind, the senator-elect has a couple other projects she hopes to tackle, as well.

Kultala said she wanted to look into the use of Sales Tax Revenue Bonds to bring the Steamboat Arabia Museum, currently in Kansas City, Mo., to Leavenworth.

STAR Bonds, which have been used in Kansas to create a large connected retail destination including the Kansas Speedway and Village West, is a state-financing program that allows city government to issue bonds that are repaid during a 20-year period using the generated sales tax revenues.

Kultala said the Steamboat Arabia Museum had been an interest of hers for quite some time. During her campaign for the Senate seat, Kultala met with several city officials in the area and said she kept hearing the desire for more economic development and employment opportunities. The museum, she said, would be a good way to help those desires become a reality, but that the city of Leavenworth does not have enough money to do it alone.

The other issue that Kultala said she wanted to bring up while in office was the appointment process of a county’s election officer. Of 105 Kansas counties, four counties have an election officer rather than a county clerk. Funding for the election office comes from the county government, but Kultala says that the Kansas Secretary of State appoints the election officers.

“I want to make the process go under the county’s governing body so that they would appoint the (election officer) and not the Secretary of State, since it falls under their budget, and they’re funding it,” she said.

Wyandotte County, which falls in the 5th District area, currently uses the election officer position, as does Johnson County. Kultala said that in the last election cycle, the Wyandotte County wanted the days and hours of its Election Office to be expanded, but that didn’t happen. Kultala said it didn’t work to be under one body’s budget and report to another.

“It just seemed odd that funding comes out of county portion of the governing body, but yet those elected officials don’t have any say,” she said.”

Kultala plans to introduce the legislation with Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley, D-Topeka.

As for getting these ideas to pass, Kultala is hoping for the best, but says that the fact that she is one of only nine Democrats in the 40-member Senate isn’t a concern. Kultala said she couldn’t have been elected without the help of her Republican supporters and that she was willing to reach across the aisle and work with all of her fellow senators.

“I don’t see it as a problem because I think Republicans and Democrats are going to have to worry about the same issues,” she said. “We both still have a billion-dollar deficit, so there’s enough hurt to go around for everybody.”