State Senator Jeff Longbine tells JC Post he voted Friday for the bills increasing the state sales tax, and the tax on cigarettes. The measures approved by both the House and Senate now go to Governor Brownback for his signature.

Together the measures are estimated to raise $384 million during he fiscal year that begins July.

Longbine said the choice the Senate had was to pass the measures, or probably  a 6.2% cut in state spending across the board. “And so when you look at the effects that that would have on K-12 education, the things that it would have on state employees, the medicaid developmental disability population, the choice became clearer for me.”

The state sales tax would increase from 6.15 percent up to 6.5 percent, and the cigarette tax would go up 50-cents per pack to $1.29.

Longbine said he was disappointed, noting he tried to point the conversation multiple times to fixing the income tax gap. “Income tax reductions are what caused it. I thought the fairest way to rectify the situation would be to work on income tax, but at the end of the day there wasn’t the apetitive from the Governor’s office or the majority of the Legislature to do that. ” Longbine added they will keep discussing that and working on it, and hopefully at some point in the future make the changes he feels are necessary.