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Legislative and Regulatory
Bill Watch April 2, 2018
April 2, 2018
Legislative Overview
The House and Senate have five days to finish their work before they dismiss for a three-week break. This week begins with the House debating their $522M increase in school finance funding that passed out of the House K-12 Budget committee on Wednesday. Both chambers will debate bills on General Orders, but the bulk of their work is dedicated to meetings of House and Senate conference committees.
Conference committees are meetings of the chairperson, vice chairperson, and ranking minority member of the standing committees from each chamber. They meet to find agreement on bills that were altered by at least one chamber. These differences can be slight to major.
The committee then meets to decide what versions of the legislation they’ll accept, giving considerable influence on final legislation to the six-member committee. Once the committee decides on an outcome, it’s presented to their respective chamber for an up or down vote as no floor amendments are allowed on
conference committee reports.
The past week saw both chambers of the legislature spend the majority of their time on the floor considering more than 40 bills. We’ve featured some of those we’ve been tracking. House Ed Budget passes K-12 bill, includes removing bond cap The House K-12 Budget Committee passed a five year, $522M increase in funding for K-12. This bill includes language that removes the hard cap and allows for a better method of managing school bonds. AGC testified in favor of this language as high growth areas of the state could be restricted from considering bonding if an adjustment isn’t made in the law.
Proponents of the school finance bill as a whole do not believe a tax increase will be required if the state does not de-couple from the federal tax code and enforces the sales tax on internet goods. Whether that is true or not remains a highly debated question. It would likely prevent funding increases in other budget areas such as corrections, mental health, and transportation.
S.B 352 Transportation Weighting
The Senate took action to address an issue that was discovered by the Division of Post Audit regarding unappropriated funds being sent Kansas school districts for transportation funding. The Senate action essentially puts into law the current practice.
Sen Sub for SB 269 Senate Mega Budget bill
The Senate passed their 2018-19 budget bill. The House was scheduled to debate their budget bill but delayed that action until probably this week. Neither Chamber’s budget addresses the adequacy question pending before the Kansas Supreme Court.
The Senate budget fully funds the Governor’s recommendation of $7.3M in 2018 and $8.3M in 2019 for career and technical education. Further, it added $5M for the National Institute for Aviation Research and $1.7M for the National Center for Aviation Training.
The explainer for the Senate budget is linked here.
School Funding Constitutional Amendment Introduced
A proposed constitutional amendment relating to school funding has been introduced. The amendment grants the legislature exclusive authority for education funding levels.
“The determination of the total amount of funding that constitutes suitable provision for finance of the educational interests of the state is exclusively a legislative power and shall be made as provided by law.” The House Judiciary Committee will have hearings on the amendment on Monday and Tuesday and will work the bill Wednesday.
SB 430- HPIP Credit Extension Passes in Senate
SB 430 modifies the state’s High-Performance Incentive Program (HPIP). The bill allows businesses to carry unused HPIP credits forward at 50% of the value of those remaining credits after their final year, for nine years. Annually the amount of credits claimed in one year is capped at 10% and clarifies that eligibility for the extension beyond the 16th year is for taxpayers who initially claimed HPIP credits before January 1, 2018. Since the bill has passed the Senate, it’s contents are eligible to move through the conference committee process next week.
House Passes Safer Schools Act
On a 119-6 vote, the House passed the “Safe and Secure Schools” bill, which offers $5 million in grant money for school districts to make school buildings safer against intrusion by terrorists/shooters. The measure continues to allow local districts to determine whether schoolteachers can have guns in their classrooms to defend students against gunwielding intruders and allows boards of education to either offer the National Rifle Association’s “Eddie Eagle Gunsafe” program or a similar program to students from first to eighth grade. School security grants (the State Board of Education will determine how to make them) are to be used for security upgrades such as tightening access to school buildings and other safety issues.
House Passes Prelim to Transportation Plan
The House passed 123-1 an amended version of a legislatively led task force to study the condition of state highways and start work on a new 10-year highway and transportation plan.