Ed. Note: Below is the transcript of the interview with Jason Probst. He is running for election Kansas House District 102.
Marc Jacobs: So, tell me a little bit about Jason Probst. I mean, you had this position until the last election. You were the district 102 rep. What brought you back to running?
Jason Probst: Well, a number of things. I mean, I have a strong commitment to the community, and I've stayed involved in the community in the last two years, despite not having an official title or role in that way. But I did that before. I mean, my whole career has been involved in the community, making sure that I'm trying to make this place a better place to live. But part of what got me to decide to run is I just felt like some of the decisions that had been made in Topeka were not representative of the district and certainly weren't helping the people who actually live in this district.
Marc Jacobs: You know, we look at things facing District 102. What's the most pressing issue facing this district right now?
Jason Probst: Well, it's hard to narrow it down to one thing, but if I gave it a label under an umbrella, it would be the cost of living or affordability. People are being squeezed out of their homes through insurance increases and property taxes. They can't afford groceries. The price of gas is higher than it's ever been. Diesel fuel is over $6 a gallon. That's going to affect the prices of everything. And all the while, we have people making decisions that are cutting back on resources that would help people navigate life in a more affordable way.
Marc Jacobs: You know, you talk about the financial umbrella. There, property taxes are becoming a very big concern for many homeowners because I know property tax. I know people who have properties that have gone from what they were in 2020 that are now 30 to 40 percent higher than what they were back then, because of the way the whole system works.
Jason Probst: I have a really simple plan for property taxes. We have an existing program called the Homestead Property Rebate Program, Property Tax Rebate Program, and we could expand that program. We could increase the income thresholds. We could increase the rebate amounts, and that would be step one. And the way we'd pay for it is to stop giving money away to billionaires. We never say no whenever data centers come to town and they want sales tax and property tax breaks. We never say no when a family with $27 billion net worth comes to town and they want $3 to $4 billion to move their stadium. We never say no when a multinational corporation comes to town and has its handouts. So, I say we stop doing that and we start using some of those resources to offset property tax increases.
Marc Jacobs:
Taking shift gears here a little bit and talk about a little bit about education. USD 308 enrollment is down a little bit. I talked to the Haven superintendent; their enrollments down a little bit. Buhler may be the rare exception to the big districts here in Reno County as their enrollment is up, how does the state fund schools when student numbers are continuing to fall, but the operating costs remain at a certain at that level?
Jason Probst: The education issue is is in a place like Hutchins is so so big because we have such a high number of at risk students and special needs students. So I'd say the first thing we can do is adequately fund special education. That would be an immediate help to the district, but education doesn't exist in a vacuum. It's tied to economic realities. It's tied to what we know about increasing home ownership. When, whenever that pressure is coming down on people in a community, they start to make a lot of decisions about where to send their kids, where to live. I think that we have to look at the education issue holistically, but specifically, we start with funding fully funding education, fully funding special education, and then I think we start looking at ways we can improve the educational environment. I mean, I would say that the best term I could use is antagonistic. the The legislature has had an antagonistic relationship with education, and I think if we stop that first and actually accept the idea that education will be a public service for the next 50 to 100 years, then we ought to make it as good as we can because it is the way we're going to fund. It is the way we're going to educate most people, and then we have to start figuring out how to make that as as good as possible for most of the people.
Marc Jacobs: Do you see a correlation between secondary education and then post-secondary education, as in the board of regents cutting slashing budgets from the regent schools?
Jason Probst: Yeah, I mean the education environment altogether. I mean it's become basically unaffordable to go to a public university for a lot of families, and that's no mistake. I mean, the state of Kansas; these are public institutions in which the state of Kansas has consistently reduced its share of public funding for those. So more of that burden has fallen on families and individuals. I think that higher education has become unattainable for a lot of families. We're very fortunate here in Hutchinson because we have the Career and Technical Education Center, and we have a lot of students that go through that, and they can come right out of high school earning real money. And I'm glad that we invest in that. But higher education has become very unaffordable, and we're seeing the effects of that out in Hays with the conversation about closing Sternberg because of the budget cuts that have happened at the university level.
Marc Jacobs: It looks like you know you talk about the cost of an education, and so many college graduates are now graduating with significant debt. Is there a way that we can prevent that? Is there a way that we can scale that back without relying completely on government funding?
Jason Probst: I think we certainly want to have some innovative approaches. I think. I mean, like I'll just go back to what we do at the work between HCC and Hutch High, where students are coming out of high school with credits already. I think programs like that are very helpful. But I think we have we we have sort of like a lot of things in this country. We've turned higher education over the years, into a sort of in ways a profit motive. I mean, there are lenders that make money off of student loan debt. Colleges, it's there are some unscrupulous actors in the field who don't care that somebody's going to carry a debt load after well, not even after they graduate. Sometimes they drop out and they carry a debt load. We have to we have to be a little more strict with some of the bad actors in the field, and we have to make sure that we're getting the right people to the right training for them in adult life.
Marc Jacobs: I want to talk a little bit about employment and jobs. Is there a solution to reducing the number of unemployed people? And I'm basically steering this towards the whole Medicaid decision because of the fact that now certain SNAP benefit people are required to hold down jobs. But if those jobs are not here, is there a way to create jobs for those people and create jobs for people in that are in Hutch that or people that might want to move to your district,
Jason Probst: I think so. I'm a big believer in local local everything, and I think one of the what I would like to see our economic development efforts applied to is startup small and medium sized businesses. When you when you foster those sorts of businesses in a community, you ultimately create more jobs. You create more investment in your community. You have people that are anchored in your community. These are the people that support the high school football team. These are people that support local civic activities. And so, I think we spend a lot of time trying to get these home run, big giant corporate landing, these jobs that come to town. And I think those ebb and flow based on a lot of forces outside of our control, but I think if we applied some of our economic development efforts or a lot more of our economic development efforts towards developing community-based businesses and smaller businesses that grow inside of a community, I think we're going to get a far better return on that, and we're going to have far better-paying jobs that people are committed to.
Marc Jacobs: I'm going to stay with that just a little bit because recently there was a data center public forum here in town, and I want to kind of steer this toward the ag angle as well. Because how should the state balance water conservation with the needs of agriculture and then industry and growing communities?
Jason Probst: It's a struggle. Agriculture uses a lot of water. Municipalities have a have a need for water. The western part of the state, where we live, we rely on aquifers. The eastern part of the state relies more on surface water. So we have two different types of water that we have to manage. And not only is it essential for what how we live as people, it's essential for the industries that we create. And I think if we're responsible, we can manage that. You know, in Western Kansas, they've experimented with things like LEMAs, which are voluntary voluntary changes to the groundwater management district that allow people to to conserve water at a higher level without being punished. I think things like that, innovative solutions. But I'm also happy to see some of the technology that's come out in agriculture that allows for far less waste. You know, end guns, just blast water out indiscriminately. And I've I've been out and seen water just on the road in the ditches. Such a wasteful way to do that compared to like Dragon lines that are right over the crop and can be adjusted to the height of the crop. That sort of technology, but also not punishing people for conserving because we used to have a use it or lose it policy, and I I have to get into the policy to see where that still exists and where it doesn't. But we need to update policy to reflect the realities that water is not an infinite resource and that it's essential to everything we do in this state.
Marc Jacobs: Another hot button topic is the is affordable housing. Is there a state solution to help find affordable housing for people, especially people that are like Alice households or or young people who are just out of college or looking for that first place? Is there a solution to affordable housing that can come from the state, or is that a local type issue?
Jason Probst: Well, I think the best solutions are always when you can layer state solutions with local. I think one thing we have to look at and examine to what degree it's happening in the state is whether these big private equity companies are affecting the markets in Kansas. You know, it's well documented that companies like BlackRock have an entire real estate division that is going around and buying as much real estate as they can, and in some cases they're sitting on it to purposely drive up the housing market and make it more expensive to rent a place in any community. So I think we have to look at that and see if that's affecting what we're doing. I think we have to continue on a track of making home building, particularly in small communities and rural areas and mid-sized cities like Hutchinson, affordable. I think we don't have as much trouble attracting developers to places like Johnson County, even to some degree Wichita. But it's a little harder to get some developers to come here. But we have some local developers that, if we worked with, I think would be willing to. I know I have some friends that work in the in the construction industry, and they want to invest and they want to build here, but they also need the numbers to work. But I think another thing that I always think about is how do we capture existing housing that has been neglected? We have a lot of housing in Hutchinson and a lot of surrounding small towns that has been neglected by out-of-state owners. how do we How do we get people to invest in those properties? How do we get local people to get their hands on those properties and make them better? I think I don't know the answer to that, but I think it's something we have to try to find the answer to.
Marc Jacobs: We talk about affordable housing and items like that. What's your thoughts, or what's your concerns, or should this be regulated? Of say big companies coming in and just buying up houses here and there, and they may have 1000 to 2000 homes, and that's why there's you know they're buying the cheap homes. They might be slapping a few things on it, but then they're renting it out instead of reselling. Is that an issue? Is that something that the state can handle?
Jason Probst: I think that at a state level we could handle it, and it's kind of like the conversation around data centers. There are some things that local communities are equipped for, and there's some things they're not equipped for. I'm not sure that a city the size of Hutchinson is well resourced enough to fight the Amazons or the Googles of the world, and I think when it comes to housing, I'm not sure that we're equipped to fight something like a BlackRock. But I do think that if we can start looking at what our needs are and begin with that and make sure that any company that comes in is meeting the needs that we have, and then we set policy and regulation in that. If I think that helps, and I think if the state then has some other guardrails that would protect communities, it would be very helpful.
Marc Jacobs:
All right, Jason, I thank you for your time this morning. We've been talking with Democratic nominee Jason Probst. He is running for the Kansas House District 102 race. Thank you.
Jason Probst: Thank you.