Every year in January, Kansas Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly submits a budget proposal – a spending blueprint for a $25 billion state government – to the Republican-controlled Legislature.
Lawmakers poke and prod the document. They praise and complain about what’s in it. They add and subtract spending. And then they pass a version of it.
This time will be different.
Top Republican lawmakers are overhauling how the state budget is put together. Instead of using the governor’s proposal as a starting point, they want the Legislature later this fall to create its own plan to use as a foundation for their discussions.
Kelly will still release a proposal in January, but it would become more of a recommendation and less of a baseline document that lawmakers rely on as they build a spending plan.
At first glance, the change may seem like an arcane, bureaucratic adjustment that will matter only to budget diehards. After all, the Legislature has always had the power to rewrite the governor’s budget proposal as much as it wants.
But Democrats fear the change risks undercutting Kelly’s influence in the budget process – a shift that over her final two years in office could affect what priorities and programs receive funding. Republicans insist the move isn’t motivated by partisan politics.
The overhaul also raises the chance of a volatile confrontation between Kelly and the Legislature.
Governors, including Kelly, rarely if ever veto entire budgets passed by lawmakers, instead turning to line-item vetoes to cut disfavored spending. It’s possible Kelly would significantly expand her use of line-item vetoes – or veto altogether – a Republican-crafted budget.
And if Democrats eliminate the Republicans’ supermajorities in either the House or Senate in the November election, GOP lawmakers will lose their power to unilaterally override Kelly’s vetoes, giving the governor enormous leverage in any budget showdown.
Kelly’s budget proposal, which is typically released the morning after her State of the State address during the first week of the legislative session in January, represents her highest-profile opportunity to force lawmakers to grapple with her spending priorities. For instance, every budget proposal from Kelly since she was elected in 2018 has included funding for Medicaid expansion, which would provide health coverage to upwards of 100,000 residents.
Republicans may ditch many of Kelly’s spending ideas – they haven’t passed Medicaid expansion – but the current budget system forces lawmakers to wade through them.
Efforts to remake the budget process will likely result in a less efficient system overall than adding or subtracting from the governor’s proposal, said Senate Minority Leader Dinah Sykes, a Lenexa Democrat.
“As far as the Legislature trying to write their own budget, I have concerns with it,” Sykes said.
An entire office – the Kansas Division of Budget – is already responsible for helping develop the governor’s proposal, she noted. The Division of Budget’s website lists a dozen employees , in addition to the state budget director, who is a Kelly appointee.
“So trying to have the Legislature do their own, we’re going to grow government and duplicate a process that has worked for quite a while,” Sykes said.
Republicans want check on spending
Republicans are moving to change the budget process as the current fiscal year budget stands at $25.4 billion from all funding sources, which includes federal dollars spent by Kansas. The budget appropriates $10 billion in state general funds – an increase of $1.2 billion, or 12.5%, from last year’s spending.
Against this backdrop, Republican lawmakers have voiced growing concerns about rising spending levels – even as the GOP-controlled Legislature has been responsible for passing growing budgets.
They say taking an earlier, and more assertive, role in budgeting will help them get a firmer grip on spending. Lawmakers have also discussed setting a 2% annual limit on spending growth, excluding increases for K-12 public schools.
“When we use the governor’s recommendations as the basis, there’s an automatic increase,” Sen. Renee Erickson, a Wichita Republican, said last week. It would be better, she said, to use the previous year’s budget as a starting point.
In interviews and public comments, GOP lawmakers said they have had the same concerns about the budget process since Republican Gov. Sam Brownback’s administration.
“This is not a political thing,” House Speaker Dan Hawkins, a Wichita Republican, said about the budget overhaul at a legislative committee meeting last week. “This is an opportunity for us, the Legislature, to do what we’re supposed to do, and that is appropriate the money.”
Rep. Troy Waymaster, a Bunker Hill Republican who chairs the House Appropriations Committee, sounded a similar note, saying in an interview that the changes have “nothing to do with who the governor is.” He described the moves as the Legislature “taking ownership” of the budget.
Waymaster cited the Legislature’s tight schedule as one reason for the change. The annual session begins in January and typically ends in late April or early May. Legislative researchers take nearly four weeks to dissect the governor’s budget proposal after it comes out, followed by budget hearings, then debate by the budget committees – all of it consuming time.
“By having the Legislature working on the budget now and crafting our own, we can start having those deliberations and not waiting for the governor’s budget report to dissect it and do the research,” Waymaster said.
Waymaster also pushed back on the suggestion that changing the budget process will require more staff or the duplication of effort. In practice, he said, the changes won’t cut Kelly out of the budget process or prevent her from meaningfully shaping spending priorities.
Law requires budget report
Kansas law requires the governor to submit a budget report in January. The report is required to include three elements – a message from the governor outlining her fiscal recommendations, a detailed description of the state’s financial position and a legislative draft reflecting the governor’s budget plan.
“We’re not dismissing what the governor is going to be submitting as a budget report. It’s going to be in conjunction with the budget that the Legislature is going to be crafting,” Waymaster said.
Grace Hoge, a spokesperson for Kelly, in a statement called the governor’s budget proposals meticulously crafted and said they had reversed years of “financial irresponsibility and instability.” Kelly’s budgets have fully funded public schools, invested in transportation infrastructure and water resources, the spokesperson said, while creating a record budget surplus and cutting taxes.
“Although the legislature has discussed changing the budget process, Kansans can trust that Governor Kelly will submit another commonsense, fiscally responsible budget proposal at the beginning of the 2025 session,” Hoge said.
How much influence Kelly continues to have over the budget may depend in large part on how many legislative seats Democrats win in the Nov. 5 election.
Two-thirds majorities are needed to override vetoes – 84 votes in the House and 27 in the Senate. Republicans currently hold enough seats to override vetoes with Democratic support, but Democrats believe they can flip a handful of seats to eliminate the supermajority in one or both chambers.
Democrats are aiming to pick up at least two seats in the House and three in the Senate. Several of those potential flips are in Johnson County. Without supermajorities, Republicans would be unable by themselves to override Kelly’s budget vetoes.
When the Legislature passed a budget in April, Kelly line-item vetoed two dozen provisions. Lawmakers overrode four of the vetoes.
Even setting aside the political dynamics, some lawmakers contend having two budget proposals will just introduce confusion into the process.
“I strongly urge you, for simplicity’s sake, keep the governor’s bill,” Rep. Henry Helgerson, an Eastborough Democrat, told his fellow lawmakers during a committee meeting last week.
Local News
