Topeka
April 5, 2024
Budget Bill in Conference Committee
The House Appropriations and Senate Ways and Means budget conference committee began negotiations Monday on the state budget. During the conference committee, numerous rounds of offers from both the House and Senate conferees were deliberated until an agreement was reached early Wednesday afternoon.
We were able to include in the Board of Regents Budget, $2.2 million for the Kansas Osteopathic Scholarship and $15.8 million for Student Success Initiatives at community colleges throughout the state. Each of these are available for fiscal year 2025. We also included $5 million for the Kansas Comprehensive Grant.
We included $4.7 million from the State General Fund to pay off state debt incurred from the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility and Kansas State House renovations, and we agreed to pay off bonds that refinanced prior obligations for a variety of capital improvement projects.
We included the $16.5 million for fiscal year 2025 from the House budget to the Department of Commerce for housing and retail development for northwest Kansas. We deleted 10 Full-Time Equivalent positions in both fiscal year 2024 and 2025 from the Department of Revenue budget. For the Judicial Branch, we provided $2.4 million in fiscal year 2024 and $1.1 for fiscal year 2025 for expenditures related to the security breach and $1.1 million for one year credit monitoring for those impacted by the breach in fiscal years 2024.
In the Department of Health and Environment budget we included $50 million, all funds, to increase the Medicaid Outpatient Hospital Reimbursement Rates. We included in the Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services fiscal 2025 budget, $5.8 million, all funds, to address 250 individuals from the waitlist for the Physical Disability Waiver and 250 individuals from the waitlist from the Intellectual and Developmental Disability waiver with an all-fund cost of $17.3 million.
Another item that we negotiated was a position of the Senate. They had $10 million from the State Highway Fund to address expansion needs of the seven commercial airports throughout Kansas. We agreed to a compromise of $5 million, with a grant maximum amount of $1 million.
Following the completion of the conference committee, we adopted the conference committee report on the House Floor and it passed Friday afternoon, 78-44.
April Schedule
The Legislature is scheduled to leave for what is referred to as First Adjournment. The House Appropriations and Senate Ways and Means Committee will return Thursday, April 25. We will meet jointly to receive updates regarding the consensus revenue estimates, Human Services caseload estimates, education caseload estimates and the Governor’s Budget amendments.
Following that joint meeting, the Appropriations Committee will meet to discuss the items that we wished to discuss at a later date, commonly referred to as Omnibus. We will also discuss any new budget items and those that were submitted by the Governor as a budget adjustment. The final week of session, Veto Session, commences on April 29.
Another Tax Bill
Before we adjourned for first adjournment on Friday, April 5, many bills still needed to be addressed, including bills for the budget and education. Another bill that was discussed is a tax bill. This is the third tax bill that the House has debated this session so we can use the State General Fund ending surplus for tax relief for Kansans.
The income tax will remain as a three-tiered structure. Two attempts were made this session to reduce it to either a one or two-tiered rate system. The rates would be the top rate of 5.70% to 5.50% and no rate changes to the lower to brackets. The bill also immediately eliminates Social Security Income Tax up to a total income of $100,000.
The bill addresses the elimination of the state’s sales tax portion on food and has that tax eliminated on July 1, 2024. The bill also reduces the state’s portion of the 20 mills that the state has control regarding property taxes to 19.5 mills. A provision to raise the residential property tax exemption from $43,000 to $100,000.
As mentioned above, this is the third tax bill that we have debated during the 2024 Legislative Session. The first tax bill was vetoed by the Governor, mainly due to the single rate, and the second, which passed 123-0 in the House, was refused by the Senate. This tax bill was referred to the Tax conference committee by the House Thursday night. We can do better for Kansans with tax relief.
Contact Information
Anytime that you would like to participate and listen to the developments of committee hearings or discussion on the House floor, you can tune in by video or audio at www.kslegislature.org.
As always, if you have any concerns, feel free to contact me 785-296-7672, follow on twitter at @waymaster4house, or email me at [email protected].
It is a distinct honor to serve as your representative for the 109th Kansas House District and the state of Kansas. Please contact me with your thoughts, concerns, and questions. I always appreciate hearing from the residents of the 109th House District and others from the state of Kansas, as well.