Tag: ksleg

Kansas HB2719 post-hearing reflections

TL;DR :

  1. Legislative Update HB2719 from Kansas Library Association
  2. Storify of yesterday’s social media posts and news coverage [because, what do librarians do along with everything else that we provide to our communities through our services? We curate and repackage information for public consumption] [Update 12/2/18: Storify is now defunct, and even Wayback Machine won’t pull up the entire Storify. Before the site shut down, I exported the document as a PDF. It isn’t perfect, but it gets the job done enough, for archival purposes.]

Personal reflections follow (and it gets lengthy…I captured these for my own thoughts and archive; if anyone else is interested, that’s great; if not, I completely understand if you don’t make it all the way through!).

Note: those foam fingers have been around for months. They were not created or designed for Monday’s advocacy efforts. 

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Kansas public library service model is threatened

This post is in response to advocacy efforts in the Kansas library community, opposing HB 2719. A hearing for this bill is scheduled for Monday, March 14, 2016. Please IMMEDIATELY contact the House Taxation Committee members and your local representative, asking them to oppose this bill. HB 2719 will end Kansas public library service as we now know it. #ksleg

Full disclosure: I am an employee of a Kansas regional library system. These thoughts are my own and not my employer’s. I am not advocating for my job. I am advocating for the citizens of Kansas who deserve maintaining equity and efficient public library service by keeping current funding models and practices in place, and oppose HB2719 as a result. 

Kansas has always leaned conservative. But it’s been common sense conservatism until recently. We’re a small urban/rural split state. Communities large & small take great pride in their public schools, public libraries, community health, and great public roads.

Kansas had figured out how to do much within its communities w modest tax dollar investments over the years in public services.

But now, in the name of low/no tax dollars at all levels of government, legislation keeps getting introduced & (at times) later passed that threatens communities.

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