
Government Relations The Voice of Business The greatest expense for most businesses, after compensating employees and covering their benefits, is the cost associated with taxes and government regulations. The Chamber's number one government affairs goal is to successfully advance the business interests of the state's largest metro area. Providing a business friendly environment so your company is positioned to grow is critical and during the legislative session, the Chamber aggressively puruses legislative priorities that benefit our members. The Chamber provides you candidate and issue education, and numerous opportunities for you to interact with elected officials. The political connections of the business community foster strong economic growth and cultural growth. Every business owner needs to be proactive and tell elected officials what is important to his or her business. The Chamber provides the best opportunity to make the connection. Read on to see our 2010 Legislative Agenda. Letter to Chamber Members - April 2010 From Chairman Sam Williams
Dear Chamber Members, The Governor’s budget is actually an increase of nearly a half a billion dollars over last year’s budget. Increasing State General Fund (SGF) expenditures from $5.4B to $5.8B is not cutting the budget. From 1993 to 2009, SGF spending has increased over 2.25 times or 125%, while inflation for the same period was only 43%. This is an unsustainable pattern of growth perpetuated by inefficient state governance. In the last five years, two of which were recessionary, SGF spending increased by 40.5% while revenues grew at 23.6%. While revenue outpaced inflation, state government still outspent receipts. Simply put, you would be out of business if you followed that example. 2010 Legislative Agenda The Legislative Agenda of the Wichita Metro Chamber this year is to keep Kansas competitive and business friendly. With the addition of our new lobbyist, former representative Jason Watkins, we intend to aggressively pursue legislative priorities that benefit our members. We all understand the critical budget situation our state faces and we also understand that many policymakers in Topeka are looking to raise taxes. We know that raising taxes will not benefit our business members, so our first priority for 2010 is our belief that we must hold the line on taxes. We want the Wichita metro region and Kansas to be competitive and business friendly and we can’t do that with increased taxes. The elimination of certain tax exemptions and credits would in effect be a tax increase. At this time, our businesses cannot afford any increase in taxes -- layoffs, earnings and state tax receipts certainly reflect this truth. Second, we are in support of the Unified Legislative Agenda – as usual, it includes issues critical for our region. A couple of issues included are continued funding for NIAR, NCAT and Affordable Airfares. NIAR and NCAT are critical to our aerospace industry – a huge resource for our state. Despite layoffs, the aviation manufacturing cluster still employs thousands of Kansans and still contributes over 20% to the State General Fund. Affordable air service to Wichita is absolutely essential to all business operations. Without affordable air service we lose not just large employers, but we also lose the up and coming high growth employers that will sustain our future. The Affordable airfares program has provided a $105 million return on investment over the past four years to the State General Fund. During this time, the state has invested $20 million and for every dollar invested the state receives $5.25 back. Finally, we want to ensure that our region receives equitable funding for economic development projects. The Chamber, Visioneering Wichita and REAP (Regional Economic Area Partnership) have provided a brief Economic Development Report for our south central Kansas legislative delegation. There is a huge disparity in what South Central Kansas contributes and receives for economic development projects compared to other regions in the state. The Chamber intends to work together with our legislators to address and remedy this problem. |




