The Register supports electing Dennis McKinney Treasurer of Kansas. McKinney has done a good job in the office since he was appointed to it when Lynn Jenkins resigned to serve in Congress in January, 2009.
McKinney is a 50-year-old farmer from Greensburg — the town that survived one of the most devastating tornadoes ever to hit Kansas. He was given the job because he demonstrated his intelligence, his sound judgment and his dedication to good government over 16 years in the Kansas House, where he became minority leader.
The office of treasurer is not a partisan post. It’s an office manager’s job that rarely calls for policy decisions.
Kansas treasurers do, however, travel around the state, going from community to community with their lists of unclaimed property that the office holds, urging citizens to check up and see if they might have forgotten a bank account or valuables left in a safety deposit box that remain unclaimed.
So McKinney shows up in Iola from time to time. Checks in at the courthouse. Makes his presence known to the city’s banks and drops off an ad at the newspaper inviting Kansans to visit the unclaimed properties website his office maintains.
The State Treasurer is also bookkeeper for the state. As such, McKinney became aware that the long term soundness of the KPERS retirement fund is shaky. Too many Legislatures in the past have fudged on their appropriations to the fund. It will run out of money down the road if it isn’t bolstered.
The treasurer can, and should, warn the Legislature, the governor and the people of Kansas about that need — but that’s all that he or she can do. The warning would carry no more weight coming from a Democrat than from a Republican. It’s a matter of math, not ideology.
Finally, it would be nice to elect McKinney in this red year, in this deep red state, just to show the world that Kansas believes in equal opportunity.
— Emerson Lynn, jr.
