By Tim Carpenter
TOPEKA — Republican gubernatorial candidate Charlotte O’Hara wants nothing to do with employees at the Kansas State Department of Education or the hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding flowing each year into the state for education of K-12 students.
O’Hara, participating in a GOP candidate forum Thursday in Wichita, said one of her priorities after being sworn into office in January would be to terminate all Department of Education staff.
“They are nothing but paper shufflers,” she said. “We have a constitutional duty to have a state Board of Education, but not a state Department of Education.”
There was no prospect of reforming Kansas public schools without ending the influence of federal education pending, O’Hara said. She didn’t explain how federal dollars could be replaced but argued for a K-12 education system that left decisions to local school boards.
“We have to declare independence and say, ‘No, we do not want federalization of our education,’ ” said O’Hara, the former Kansas House and Johnson County Commission member.
O’Hara, of Overland park, also said she would issue an executive order blocking all public funding of Planned Parenthood. She criticized state incentives that brought the Kansas City Chiefs across the state line and complained homeowners were forced to absorb obscene increases in property taxes.
“We have a two-tier tax system,” she said. “We have the taxes that we all pay and then we have the taxes that the well-connected pay, which is much lower than what we pay. It doesn’t work.”
During the KNSS radio forum moderated by John Whitmer, a former Republican member of the Kansas House, questions were posed to O’Hara and GOP gubernatorial candidates Secretary of State Scott Schwab, Senate President Ty Masterson and businessman Philip Sarnecki.
Not participating in the Wichita event were Republican candidates Nick Reinecker, Stacy Rogers and state Insurance Commissioner Vicki Schmidt. Also absent were the three Democratic candidates for governor: Sen. Ethan Corson, Sen. Cindy Holscher and Overland Park Mayor Curt Skoog.
Hans Torgerson, spokesperson for the Kansas Democratic Party, said the GOP roundtable offered voters “an extreme, out-of-touch agenda.”
“They deserve a governor focused on the issues that actually affect their lives: Surging inflation and gas prices, a chaotic tariff agenda and crumbling rural healthcare,” he said.
Schwab: Rural development
Schwab, a two-term secretary of state from Johnson County who served more than a decade in the Kansas House, said the next governor must focus on rural development. He witnessed erosion of the rural economy by visiting Great Bend, where he grew up.
“Every time I go home, it don’t look the same,” he said. “It’s getting smaller. More boards on windows. Went from three Pizza Huts to half of one. Three Dillons stores to a quarter of one.”
The key would be to make Kansas the economic epicenter of agricultural crop production and animal health so manufacturing would be drawn to smaller cities in the state, he said. Expanding the state’s highway infrastructure, including a four-lane from Liberal to Interstate 70, would be necessary to move goods to market efficiently, he said.
“You lose your manufacturing, you lose your hospital. You lose your hospital, no company is coming to town,” Schwab said.
Schwab said decisions on construction of data centers should be left to local county officials. He defended state investment of at least $1.8 billion to bring the Chiefs to a new stadium in Wyandotte County and a practice facility in Johnson County.
“By the way, we took something from Missouri. Does anybody like the concept of taking something from Missouri?” he said.
Masterson: Go Chiefs
Masterson, a 20-year veteran of the Legislature who was endorsed by President Donald Trump, said the state needed conservative leadership in the governor’s office after Democrats held the job 16 of the past 24 years.
“We’ve been exporting our children and not our products,” he said. “I want investment in Kansas. I want jobs. Our kids need opportunity. That’s what keeps them at home. I joke that people move for two reasons — jobs and relationships. Since I’m not running a state-run dating service, I going to talk about the jobs.”
He voted for incentives to the Chiefs because issuance of state construction bonds would inspire billions of dollars in private investment.
“Not a single taxpayer in Kansas has any liability for anything around it. It brings in thousands of permanent jobs,” Masterson said. “Just the income tax off the NFL alone is estimated to be nearly $3 billion over the bond term. That doesn’t talk about any growth in sales tax. That’s where I’m aligned with Trump. I want to not just invest in America. I want to invest in Kansas.”
Masterson, of Andover, defended the GOP-dominated Legislature’s decisions the past two years to spend an estimated $700 million more annually than received in tax revenue.
He pledged to aggressively respond to reading deficiencies among Kansas elementary students. He raised the possibility of blocking third- and fourth-grade students from advancing to the next grade unless they proved they could read at an acceptable level.
Sarnecki: Follow the money
Sarnecki, a Johnson County finance executive, said he decided to run for governor because Kansas needed leadership from someone who wasn’t a career politician.
“We need something different in the state of Kansas. It’s not going to be changed from someone on the inside who has been part of the problem for over two decades. It’s only going to get changed from bringing somebody from the outside in,” he said.
He said weak Republican leadership in the Legislature and GOP candidate losses to Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly in 2018 and 2022 contributed to an unreasonable $10 billion expansion of the state’s $26 billion budget during the past seven years.
“First thing we’re going to do on day one is bring in an independent outside auditor,” Sarnecki said. “We’re going to audit every single department and every single agency across all the state government. We’re going to get rid of the waste and fraud.”
He renewed an attack on legislative leaders, including Masterson, who defended state investment in the Chiefs and denounced the unfair process of handing out tax breaks.
“We have a lot of people in the Legislature, and especially in the leadership, they think economic development is tossing money to special interests. By the way, the lobbyists that are funding them are driving a lot of that. Just follow the money trail and you’ll figure out what’s going on,” Sarnecki said.
