As President Obama and Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney rhetorically sparred Tuesday on national TV, Kansas House and Senate candidates seeking a Franklin County constituency were busy appealing to local voters during an Ottawa forum.

During the forum, which took place at Ottawa Middle School, 1230 S. Ash St., Ottawa, each state candidate addressed largely the same topics, including Kansas’ new tax plan, job creation and public school funding.

As President Obama and Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney rhetorically sparred Tuesday on national TV, Kansas House and Senate candidates seeking a Franklin County constituency were busy appealing to local voters during an Ottawa forum.

During the forum, which took place at Ottawa Middle School, 1230 S. Ash St., Ottawa, each state candidate addressed largely the same topics, including Kansas’ new tax plan, job creation and public school funding.

Kansas House District 5

A fresh face in Kansas politics is hoping to unseat an 18-year incumbent in the race for Kansas House District 5. Kevin Jones, R-Wellsville, faces state Rep. Bill Feuerborn, D-Garnett, in the race to represent eastern Franklin, most of Anderson and western parts of Linn and Miami counties.

Asked about their stances on Kansas’ tax plan, Jones said it is a good opportunity to put cash back in the pockets of Kansans.

“I would say yes [in support of Kansas’ new tax plan],” Jones, a Wellsville school board member, said. “We find ourselves leveraged out to where we ... don’t have the cash flow needed to support important jobs and education and all these things. ... What we have to do is have the opportunity to have the cash flow to pay for the important things. ... We need to do something that’s going to create and attract jobs and that’s going to create that cash flow that’s going to be able to pay for our education and pay for all these important things.”

Feuerborn, the ranking minority member of the House’s appropriations committee, said he disagrees with the tax plan for a variety of reasons.

“Corporations [and] sole proprietorships will pay no income tax — no income tax and money transfers to them — and some of these are multi-million and billion dollar companies. Is that fair?” Feuerborn asked the crowd. “I don’t think it’s fair as a business person that I don’t pay income taxes but every one of my employees will have to pay income tax. And that’s why I voted no [against the tax plan].” 

George next asked the candidates if they believed public schools were being adequately funded. Both Feuerborn and Jones asserted their priorities of quality education and voiced concerns of its future. 

“Public education is something that’s near and dear to my heart,” Jones said. “I paid my way through school and the cost has gone up so much, and it’s hard for our students to get jobs around here that will actually pay them back ... It’s not adequately funded, and the reason I say that is because I’ve sat on the school board. There’s a mistrust between the local boards of education and the state. They have to fight for state money, and the states don’t trust the boards. I don’t want people at the local level having to fight to get funds for our education.”

Feuerborn offered the perspective of a Kansan who’s been on the other side of the school-state struggle, but agreed funding remains a chief concern.

“In 2009, we were at $4,400 at the base [aid per pupil] and now we’re at $3,800 base aid,” Feuerborn said. “With inadequate funding, our test scores are down for the first time in years. We have larger classes. We’ve had to let teachers go. ... Our per pupil base aid is what it was at in 2001. Think of all the higher expenses like transportation and school books. No, it’s not adequate.”

Kansas House District 59

In the race between two lifelong Ottawa residents, Blaine Finch, a Republican candidate, and Caleb Correll, a Democrat, seemed mostly to agree with each other on the forum’s main topics. 

Both candidates voiced reservations about Kansas’ 2013 tax plan, which calls for massive income tax cuts that opponents fear will result in higher property taxes and deeper cuts to public education. 

“I don’t support the tax plan as it was passed,” Finch said to the forum’s audience of about 50 people. “The state budget is about $6.2 billion. The legislative research department estimates that the fiscal impact of the tax cuts — without the revenue generated measures — will be about $2.7 billion in deficits by 2018. The governor and others are hoping we’ll have enough economic development between now and then to make up for that. But the projections are that it would take 500,000 new jobs to make up that deficit. We have 1.3 million people working in this state. I’ve worked in economic development for a couple years and I can tell you that it’s going to be darn difficult to grow our workforce by 500,000 people when we only have 1.3 million workers. ... A significant cut to the state budget is going to affect education, and I’m absolutely opposed to that. We’ve got to find a way — if we want to lower taxes — to still spend on things that are most important.”

Correll echoed the sentiment but with a more pointed stance on the tax plan’s potential harm to Kansas. In addition to concerns that Legislature would borrow against the state transportation fund, Correll said he fears Kansans’ property taxes will rise if the plan is not changed during the 2013 legislative session.

“I do not support the tax plan,” Correll said. “It is going to put our state’s budget into a deficit that we won’t get ourselves out of. Some of the loopholes that were created were done at the expense of exemptions for lower income people and sales taxes on food. ... What they did was raise taxes on lower income people to cut taxes for higher income people and, in my eyes, it just doesn’t make sense. These people need our help the most. ... We need to revisit those exemptions.”

Asked by forum moderator Dennis George how each candidate would create jobs in Kansas and his district, Correll said he’d institute policies for more in-state cooperation between the state and Kansas businesses, investing in education-based jobs and limiting illegal immigration. 

“One way we can create jobs is to make sure we have contracts to go out in the state from Kansas companies,” Correll said. “Our schools employ quite a few people, and I think that is lost on the public. But schools really drive employment. ... I feel like we also need to make sure that illegal immigration isn’t putting a dent in job creation. We could have polices put in place like E-Verify that could prevent illegal immigration from taking jobs away from Kansans.”

Finch replied with ideas of retaining Kansas’ college-educated in the state to lure science and engineering companies seeking a well-qualified workforce. “You have a couple of different factors working against you when you talk about job creation in Kansas,” Finch, a former Ottawa mayor, said. 

“We are a brain-drain state. We actually have net immigration in the state for people who go to high education institutions and get degrees and net migration out after they get their education. ... So how do we fix this? We have to bring jobs to the state that capture those people leaving once they’re educated. We have to make sure we have the science, technology and mathematics initiatives — the STEM initiatives — to teach science, engineering and mathematics to young people. ... So we have to have targeted policies that improve those types of jobs here in Kansas.”

Senate District 12

In the local Senate race, state Rep. Caryn Tyson, R-Parker, is hoping to successfully switch over to Kansas’ other legislative branch by defeating Denise Cassells, D-Mound City. 

Cassells, who serves on the advisory board for the Miami County Adult Continuing Education Center, said she opted to run for office after seeing the political gridlock in Topeka during the previous legislative session. 

“I was a registered Republican for 16 years, an Independent for four years and I’ve been a Democrat since 2004,” Cassells said. “I think this will add to my ability to listen to both sides of an issue because I think that everybody has something important to share and every voice should be heard. ... If we look at addressing our entire constituency, we have to look at both sides of the table. We cannot be narrow-minded.”

Tyson said she’d like to bring her pragmatic background to Kansas Legislature and also bring the state back to the nation’s core ideals forged in the 1700s. 

“I want to be a person that works on solutions, not just somebody complaining about problems,” Tyson said. “I want to take that attitude of working for the people, for solutions for Kansas to get the job done. I’ve said it before, and I’m going to say it again. We’ve got to get back to the Founding Fathers.”

Asked about their ideas to create jobs in the district, Tyson said Kansas’ new tax plan will spur employment and prosperity. 

“One of the main policies [to create jobs] will be the tax bill we passed,” Tyson said. “That’s going to create jobs.”

Cassells, however, maintained that Kansas should reinvest in its education system and infrastructure to bring more jobs. 

“Jobs are created though first educating our population,” Cassells said. “You have to educate your population. With the cuts we’ve seen recently, I think we need to invest more money in our education system. ... The other thing we have to focus on is infrastructure. In order to bring businesses to our local communities, we must provide adequate roads and bridges, and many of the roads and bridges in this district are in bad need of repair.”