TOPEKA — The Republican-led Kansas Legislature reconvenes Thursday to weigh Gov. Laura Kelly’s veto of two dozen separate bills and line-item vetoes of more than 30 provisions in a state budget bill the Democratic governor viewed as unconstitutional, unethical or unreasonable.
Kelly signed House Bill 2513 after relying on her executive authority to delete from the budget a 4.4% pay raise for state legislators, the 1.5% across-the-board cut to selected state agencies, a “sweetheart” $50 million taxpayer-backed loan to Yingling Aviation of Wichita and the no-bid contract with Motorola for an emergency communications system that could cost $100 million.
On Wednesday, she said the state budget ought to reflect values of Kansans from every corner of the state and should represent meaningful collaboration between a governor and legislators.
“The Legislature has abandoned that partnership,” Kelly said. “Despite this being a really bad budget, I will sign it, because the alternative is worse. This is the last budget that I will sign as governor. It is my hope that the next governor will have a Legislature that is willing to return to the traditional partnership that is more likely to produce a budget that is fiscally responsible, invests in our state’s future wisely and is befitting the trust Kansans place in us to be good stewards of their resources.”
KANSAS HOUSE Speaker Dan Hawkins, a Wichita Republican running for state insurance commissioner, said during a forum in Topeka that he anticipated Kelly would use executive power to veto pieces of the budget. He said some adjustments by the governor could be useful, if they curtailed expenditures.
“She will line-item veto some things and hopefully save us more money,” Hawkins said. “Probably one of my biggest disappointments is how hard it is to get our folks to understand that your expenses need to equal your revenue. It’s really tough. It’s a steady flow of people wanting money, and it’s hard to say no.”
Documents released by the Legislature indicated the budget forwarded to the governor would spend more in the fiscal year starting July 1 than analysts expected the state to receive in annual revenue. One estimate put overspending next fiscal year at $475 million, which would be an improvement from the current fiscal year. In this year’s budget, the state was expected to spend $705 million more than revenue deposits. For the past three years, the state has relied on cash reserves to cover structural deficits.
Historically, the Legislature hasn’t adjourned the session before fiscal analysts met in late April to revise income and sales tax revenue projections for the upcoming fiscal year. That meeting won’t occur until April 20.
Long list of budget vetoes
It’s unclear which of the 31 line-item budget vetoes leadership of the House and Senate would attempt to override by leveraging Republican supermajorities in both chambers.
Kelly deleted state funding to unregulated pregnancy crisis centers that urged women to avoid abortion, rejected an “irresponsible” provision guaranteeing legislators special privileges when using parking lots and rebuffed the narrowing of vaccination mandates for school children.
“Making abrupt changes to these longstanding vaccine schedules erodes trust in scientific evidence and the safety and efficacy of vaccines, ultimately endangering the health of Kansans and our communities,” the governor said.
KELLY VETOED part of the budget allowing the House speaker and Senate president to hire staff who would have access to sensitive personal information, including bank account details and Social Security numbers, on every state employee and all persons or entities receiving state funding in the past 10 years. The Legislature wanted these political appointees to search for government waste and fraud, but the governor said the Kansas Department of Administration hosted a publicly available database on financial transactions that didn’t expose sensitive personal information.
“I would urge lawmakers interested in reviewing this data to make use of the publicly available resources already in place rather than attempting to circumvent privacy rules for their own political games,” Kelly said.
Kelly vetoed from the budget a section deleting $6 million of the $16 million allocated by the Kansas Department of Aging and Disability Services for mental health intervention teams in public schools. The proviso would have left in place all $1.5 million earmarked for mental health interventions in private schools.
The governor said the Legislature ought to have determined if there was research to support “this ill-informed reduction” in mental health aid. If the program must be cut, the governor said, reductions at public and private schools should be proportionate.
