TOPEKA — Top leaders of the Kansas Legislature authorized on a party-line vote Wednesday the formation of a special committee responsible for developing a state government budget plan before the start of the 2025 session in January.
The 23-person committee, with 16 Republicans and seven Democrats, would meet five times between the Nov. 5 general election and the Jan. 13 launch of the annual session. The objective would be to produce a legislative draft of the budget before Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly outlined her priorities in the State of the State speech and in written budget recommendations.
The Legislative Coordinating Council, with support of only Republican House and Senate members, embraced the departure from precedent in Kansas.
For years, the Legislature has used a governor’s budget to initiate work on spending bills. Under the alternative inspired by House Speaker Dan Hawkins and Senate President Ty Masterson, both Republicans, the recommendations from Kelly would be relegated to the backburner.
Hawkins said the modified process would give members of the Republican-led Legislature an additional three weeks to compare agency budget requests with last session’s spending bills. No longer would the Legislature’s existing budget committees sit on their hands for weeks waiting for a governor’s budget reports, he said.
“Everybody wants more time to dive into these budgets,” Hawkins said. “This is an opportunity for us to really work hard on doing good budgeting instead of just accepting the governor’s budget.”
Kelly said there was no merit to the GOP’s overhaul of the budget process while House Minority Leader Vic Miller, D-Topeka, questioned the wisdom of appointing an elite contingent of “super legislators” with power to carve the base budget.
Masterson challenged Miller’s suggestion Republicans were creating a two-tier system relative to legislative input on the budget.
“I just disagree with that comment on some type of super legislators,” said Masterson, who argued the special committee’s budget would be vetted by both chambers of the Legislature before sent to the governor.
Miller said the regular House and Senate budget committees could perform extra scrutiny of the state budget if GOP leaders stopped declaring “pro forma” days at the Capitol. In 2023, the Legislature was given seven days off in January but were paid by virtue of the pro forma designation. There were nine such days in January 2024, he said.
He said it would be fair to describe the pro forma concept as an opportunity for elected officials to “get paid for not doing anything.”
In addition, Miller questioned why the draft of the 2025 budget would be shaped by eight Senate Republicans, eight House Republicans, three Senate Democrats and four House Democrats who may or may not return to the Legislature in January. Committee appointments haven’t been made public, but all House and Senate seats are up for reelection Nov. 5.
Senate Minority Leader Dinah Sykes, a Lenexa Democrat who voted against the special committee plan along with Miller, said the Legislature should certainly dig deeper into nuances of state spending. But she expressed concern the expanding budget process could potentially burden legislative staff.
Eventually, Republicans plan to introduce a bill that would make the special budget committee a permanent fixture in state law.
Rep. Blake Carpenter, R-Derby, said it was best to not think about the budget reform in context of the Kelly administration. A future Republican governor would operate with the same limitations imposed on Kelly, he said.
