THE CAPITAL-JOURNAL NEWS SATURDAY, DECEMBER 8, 201212A www.cjonline.com

Moore repeatedly questioned the relationship between Hens-ley and Topeka Unified School District 501, including whether the district's school board would still grant Hensley his leave of absence to go to the Legislature each year if he weren't generally working in the district's interests once he got there.

"He has consistently sought to feather his own nest at the ex-pense of taxpayers," Moore said via email during the campaign, adding that Hensley has "a con-flict of interest in him voting on budgets for his workplace."

Hensley, who won the 19th District Senate race by 16 per-centage points, said he is upfront about his teaching job and sug-gested Moore's strategy back-fired.

“I’ve always been supportive of K-12 education and higher education, and I think that’s re-flected among my constituents, too,” Hensley said. “I think they support more funding and par-ticularly now they support re-storing the cuts.”

For years Hensley has been one of a handful of legislators with professional ties to public education. Their ranks will be thinner next year.

Sen. Jean Schodorf, R-Wichi-ta, a speech teacher and chair-woman of the Senate Education Committee, was one of the mod-erate Republicans voted out in the party’s primary purity purge.

Sen. John Vratil, R-Leawood, retired from the Legislature after years serving as both the vice chairman of the education com-mittee and legal counsel for the Blue Valley school district.

That interplay led Johnson

County political activist Ken Dunwoody to file a complaint with the Kansas Governmental Ethics Commission, saying Vra-til was essentially an education lobbyist in the Legislature. The complaint was denied, with the commission stating that Vratil's $92,000 contract with Blue Val-ley was "not sufficient evidence to substantiate the allegation Mr. Vratil must register as a lobbyist in Kansas."

Dunwoody said he still be-lieves Vratil violated "the intent of the law."

"Obviously Sen. John Vratil has done nothing that would be sanctionable by the ethics com-mission," Dunwoody said. "The problem surfaces that the rules are made by the Legislature, and they intentionally exempt them-selves from the rules."

Vratil said he took a leave of absence from his job with the school district during the legisla-tive session, and he asked the opinion of the Kansas Attorney General’s Office on whether his job constituted a conflict of in-terest when he entered the Sen-ate in 1998.

“The attorney general wrote back and said absolutely no, there is no conflict of interest as conflict of interest is defined un-der Kansas law," Vratil said. "And if I had a conflict of interest, so did most other legislators who are gainfully employed.”

Vratil said that in Kansas, law-makers are expected to work outside the session.

“I do not believe that it’s a conflict of interest for me to vote, for example, for an increase in base state aid (for education)," Vratil said. "That’s nothing that benefits the Blue Valley school district without benefiting the

other school districts. We have a citizen Legislature in Kansas, and if it was a conflict of interest for a school teacher to vote on school legislation and for a farm-er to vote on agriculture legisla-tion and a banker to vote on banking legislation, we couldn’t have a citizen Legislature.”

But Sen. Les Donovan, R-Wichita, had a different take during an interview about his own work on automobile-relat-ed legislation as a car dealer.

"How can somebody like Tony Hensley or Jean Schodorf vote for more, more, more money for education when they're an edu-

cator?" Donovan said. "That's voting themselves more money. How can they? They do and don't even blink. John Vratil, how can he champion more and more and more money for schools? His livelihood is repre-senting schools. That's what he does."

Higher education advocates sometimes face similar ques-tions.

Rep. Barbara Ballard, D-Law-rence, a University of Kansas ad-ministrator, has been a reliable supporter of the state's public universities during two decades in the House.

Ballard didn’t respond to an emailed request for comment, but Kansas Democratic Party chairwoman Joan Wagnon said legislative colleagues questioned her motives when she was in a similar position.

"I went to bat for Washburn University and its funding every time I got the opportunity," Wa-gnon said. "Somebody would always come up and say, 'Doesn't your husband teach there?' Well, yes he does, and he's tenured faculty. But it doesn't make a bit of difference about his salary."

Similarly, there is no direct proportional connection be-tween the Legislature’s appro-priation for K-12 schools and the pay of school district employees like Hensley.

Topeka USD 501 spokesman Ron Harbaugh said that in order to tie the two together, one would have to “take the long way around,” as the money winds through layers of decision-mak-ers.

“It’s up to the school district for the budget,” Harbaugh said. “The people who put together our budget, they’re the ones who determine where the money goes.”

According to public records, Hensley made $29,511.75 dur-ing the 2011-12 school year. Har-baugh said Hensley worked 103 out of 185 school days, which would correspond to an annual salary of about $53,000.

Hensley said that him voting to add state funds to K-12 educa-tion isn’t analogous to business owners voting to send subsidies directly to their businesses.

“I’m in a class of people,” Hen-sley said. “There are thousands of public school teachers. It’s a stretch to say that if I vote to re-store the cuts (to education), I’m directly benefiting myself, put-ting money in my own pocket.”

Like Vratil, Hensley said in a citizen Legislature, all members ostensibly can work on bills that would benefit their industries.

Transparency is key, Hensley said, and there are times when the benefit is too specific and a legislator should abstain. For ex-ample, he said if a bill came to his desk that would change teaching license fees, he would consider recusing himself.

But Moore said he is still un-convinced about the appropri-ateness of Hensley's dual ca-reers, and he has heard from voters — some of them teachers — who agree with him.

"How can someone receive two paychecks and two revenue streams into their government pension and work two jobs con-secutively without anyone ask-ing questions?" Moore said via email. "How can that go on for years? How many teachers can do what one particular legislator does and keep his/her job, pay and benefits? Do voters have a clue?"

Continued from Page 1A

THAD ALLTON/THE CAPITAL-JOURNAL

Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley, D-Topeka, argues that his support of higher state spending on public school districts and work as a teacher in Topeka Unified School District 501 doesn’t constitute a conflict of interest.

Politicians: A.G. says Vratil had no conflict of interest

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