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Minutes for HB2215 - Committee on Agriculture
Short Title
Kansas state fair board is authorized to create a nonprofit corporation for the benefit of the state fair.
Minutes Content for Mon, Feb 18, 2019
Chair Highland opened the hearing on HB2215 at 3:32pm.
Kyle Hamilton, Assistant Revisor, Office of The Revisor of Statutes, provided an overview of HB2215 and the statutes that it affects. (Attachment 1) There is a Fiscal Note for HB2215.
PROPONENTS
Representative Paul Waggoner, 104th District, Kansas House of Representatives, appeared before the Committee in support of HB2215. (Attachment 2) The Kansas State Fair has been in Hutchinson for over 100 years and is literally in the heart of our city. Across the state, Farmers, Ranchers, FFA, marching bands, 4-H groups, Scouts, local artists and others would come year after year to show and exhibit their best work. The ties that bind Kansans, especially rural Kansans, to the Fair are deep and abiding. HB2215 facilitates the ability of the Fair Board to capture that respect when it is expressed financially. HB2215 makes it easier for the Fair to receive private gifts, grants and donations to use for the benefit of the Kansas State Fair.
Representative Waggoner responded to questions from the Committee.
Virginia Crossland-Macha, President, Kansas State Fair Board, appeared before the Committee in support of HB2215. (Attachment 3) This bill gives the State Fair Board a new tool in meeting the infrastructure needs of the Kansas State Fair. One of the biggest challenges the Fair Board has is to put together a long-range plan for the Fair's Capital Improvements without some ability to project paying for those improvements. Identifying the building needs is only one part of the challenge. We must also have the financing.
The Fair Board believes that, in this day and age, a better and potentially more reliable or controllable option would be to have a 501(c)(3) controlled by the board. With the passage of HB2215, the Kansas State Fair Board can establish a building plan and then go about raising money to carry out the plan.
Ms Crossland-Macha and Robin Jennison, General Manager, Kansas State Fair, responded to questions from the Committee.
There were no opponents/neutrals of HB2215.
The hearing on HB2215 was closed at 3:53pm.
The Chair adjourned the meeting at 3:54pm.
