TOPEKA — An overwhelming majority of the Kansas Legislature approved a budget bill allocating more than $120 million to raise salaries of state employees and delivering $220 million to assist cities and counties eager to qualify for federal infrastructure aid during the next four years.
The final spending bill of the 2023 legislative session was large enough that a shorthand document outlining the plan covered 47 pages. The contents of Senate Bill 25 were shipped to Gov. Laura Kelly after receiving bipartisan support with votes of 29-10 in the Senate and 91-29 in the House.
During debate on the budget, members of the House and Senate expressed discontent with overall growth in state spending and layering of special-interest appropriations into the bill that weren’t publicly vetted by Senate and House committees.
Due to a stalemate on major tax reform that would have lowered the ending balance in 2024, lawmakers departed the Capitol with an expectation Kansas could end the next fiscal year with a $2.6 billion surplus in addition to $1.6 billion deposited in a rainy-day fund as protection against recession.
Before adjourning the annual legislative session Friday night, lawmakers rejected Kelly’s proposal for an $820 million initiative delivering to every adult Kansas taxpayer a check for $450 this summer. The governor made the proposal as an alternative to tax reductions sought by GOP legislators.
Sen. Caryn Tyson, a Parker Republican who chairs the Senate’s tax committee, said derailment of legislation slashing state taxes by $1.4 billion left her with no choice but to oppose the budget bill.
“We are increasing our government spending to the point where it’s out of control and not sustainable,” Tyson said. “But we’re not willing to give taxpayers a tax cut in order to help them pay their bills.”
Growth in state government expenditures, fueled by inflationary consumer spending and infusion of federal money through the COVID-19 pandemic, had to be addressed by a disciplined Legislature, said Sen. Virgil Peck, R-Havana.
“It seems like every single year we’re adding expenditures,” said Peck, who also voted “no” on the budget bill. “There’s a lot of bloat, a lot of waste.”
The salary money
Democrats and Republicans said they supported the budget, in part, because it poured $120 million into addressing deficiencies in state employee salaries that had been identified in market studies.
Workers with salaries more than 10% below market would receive a 5% raise or enough to reach the 10% under-market level. Individuals with salaries less than 10% below market or less than 10% above market would get a 5% boost. Anyone with a salary that was more than 10% above market levels would be limited to a 2.5% raise.
People working in certain agencies — Kansas Department of Corrections, state hospitals, Kansas Commission on Veterans Affairs — would get market adjustments in addition to a 5% bonus. The Kansas Highway Patrol and Kansas Bureau of Investigation would be allocated 2.5% raises to supplement career progression pay enhancements. A special $13 million merit pool would be appropriated to universities in the Kansas Board of Regents system.
Non-judge employees in the judicial branch and full-time workers in the legislative branch would get raises of 5%, while judges and justices, statewide elected officials and legislators would be excluded.
“Somebody always feels slighted or somebody feels like they should have received more,” said Rep. Troy Waymaster, a Bunker Hill Republican and chairman of the House Appropriations Committee.
