(KAIR)--The Atchison Area Chamber of Commerce held it's second Legislative Forum of the year Saturday, and nearly twenty people gathered in the Santa Fe Depot for a chance to speak with State Representative Jerry Henry.

Henry addressed several issues with the crowd, such as judicial reform and proposed tax increases. School financing was also an area of concern, and Henry says that a bill introduced Friday seeks to provide stable funding to schools for the next two years and “there is also some flexibility in that...meaning right now, there are so many accounts that you can only spend that money on...we are breaking down all those barriers now, they can take money from anywhere and spend it anywhere, so theyve got that flexibility.” The downside to this is that if a district has to make changes, they have to do it without new money.

Questions were raised regarding KPERS, with Henry saying that there are some concerns with the Governor's plan to fix the program in that “the issue of going out and borrowing $1.5 billion, and then turning around and investing it in the stock market or other investment tools and try to make a five percent gain on that...a lot of legislators have a lot of concern about that because what happens if we do get upside down, and all of a sudden we are spending money on that. It also decreases our ability to do bonding. There are a lot of questions about whether that's a feasible way to go, but the Governor wants to do it, and I know we will have debate on the floor.”

Henry also discussed the projected $600 million shortfall in the state's budget for the next fiscal year. He said he “thinks we are going to do a mixture of recinding some of the income taxes that we've done...also they are going to probably cut another $200 million out of certain agencies, and then use the KPERS issue and maybe take some more money out of transportation, and balance the budget. That's kinda what I see happening. Will it be that way in May? I don't know.”

The final forum for the current legislative session is scheduled to take place on Saturday, April 4th.