TOPEKA — Lawmakers’ plans to take control of the state’s budget-writing process could be rocky upon rollout, Republican leadership warned Wednesday as outside groups weighed in.
The new approach positions the Legislature as the state’s chief budget authority and, if successful, would mean a budget is proposed as a bill on the first day of the 2025 session. The spending recommendations that Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly proposes in the first week of the session, which are typically lawmakers’ first glimpse at the budget, would become merely supplemental.
The special committee tasked with sorting out the details of the budget takeover, formed by House Speaker Dan Hawkins, R-Wichita, and Senate President Ty Masterson, R-Andover, held its second meeting Wednesday. Three organizations provided testimony and recommendations.
Ultimately, such an overhaul isn’t going to go perfectly in its first year, Hawkins said at the meeting.
“It’s gonna be probably a little rocky, but we’re gonna get through it, and we’re gonna learn,” Hawkins said. “And we’re going to become better at this process every single year.”
Leah Fliter, executive assistant director of advocacy for Kansas Association of School Boards, urged the committee to consider creating a “clean K-12 budget” instead of packaging it alongside non-budget policies. She also recommended passing the school funding bill before the midway point in the legislative session to avoid the addition of last-minute earmarks and late-night negotiations, she wrote in testimony to the committee.
Lawmakers in recent years have tied school funding to open enrollment and attempts to create a voucher program for private schools.
The approach “resulted in legislators reluctantly voting for education funding bills that also include policy measures which harm their local school boards’ ability to support success for all Kansas students,” Fliter said.
Vance Ginn, a senior fellow at Kansas Policy Institute, offered a shortlist of six recommendations, which included reducing the state’s dependency on federal funds, imposing stronger spending limits and conducting regular third-party efficiency audits.
Kurt Couchman with Americans for Prosperity encouraged the committee to consider a comprehensive budget, in which all spending and revenues would be contained. That would allow lawmakers to make relative value judgements on different programs, he said.
“It also would help provide more political cover to do the tough but necessary things,” Couchman said, including “pension reform.”
Rep. Henry Helgerson, D-Eastborough, questioned the goals of the special committee and whether it was truly without partisan motivations.
“The budget process should not be a partisan effort by one side or the other,” he told Kansas Reflector. “It should be based on good public policy.”
Following the committee meeting, Helgerson said he’s interested in marrying the governor’s customary budget approach with the new legislative experiment while working toward limiting government growth and returning funds to Kansans. Citizens in his Sedgwick County district are struggling with the costs of gasoline, food and property taxes, according to a recent survey he conducted of his constituents.
“Too many people are out there hurting,” he said.
