No reason to gloat over Kansas' lost litigation funding

Kansas may not be able to push quite as hard in its case against Nebraska over Republican River water, but don't expect the issue to go away any time soon.

It would be funny if there weren't so many farms, jobs, businesses and taxpayer dollars on the line.

It seems Kansas, which won a $34 million settlement from Colorado in a dispute over the Arkansas River Compact, and put half the money away, in part, to sue Nebraska over the Republican River Compact, accidentally spent the $17 million on other things.

"I would suggest we need to take a look at our accounting procedures," said Sen Laura Kelly of Topeka, in one of the understatements of the year.

While the money was supposed to have been put in a "lockbox" for litigation, someone forgot to keep the key away from the a Kansas House-Senate conference committee, which slid the whole $17 million into an appropriations bill at the end of the 2007 legislative session.

Lawmakers voted on it and Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, now U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary, signed into law the bill draining the water litigation fund, but nobody noticed until the attorney general's office asked for money to work on water issues in 2010 and 2011.

Now, the state's head lawyer will have to persuade strapped lawmakers to provide $1.6 million for this year's battle with Colorado over the Arkansas River ruling.

To make matters worse, Kansas recently received word that tobacco companies are contesting $167 million in payments they made in 2003-5, saying the state didn't adequately enforce provisions of a tobacco settlement.

But Southwest Nebraskans, who are hoping to get back some illegally-collected property tax collected for the Republican River settlement, don't have any reason to gloat.