House Appropriations Committee restores some budget items, trims others in early FY2025 deliberations

Dylan Dear, with the Kansas Legislative Research Department, told the Senate Ways and Means briefing that the House Appropriations Committee has made targeted changes to agency budgets as it considers the fiscal 2025 and 2026 appropriations.

Dear said the committee has added about $46.3 million to its FY2025 adjustments and $41.5 million to FY2026 compared with its prior recommendation, offsetting part of larger deletions the committee made from agency requests earlier in the process. "So for FY2025, so far during deliberation on the budget, the House Appropriations Committee has added $46,300,000 to their previous adjusted recommendation," Dear said.

The changes include both restorations of lapsed reappropriations and new additions. Major adjustments noted in the briefing included deletion of $248,322 in State General Fund (SGF) support for the Attorney General’s VINE victim notification system; restoration of roughly $3.0 million in legislative reappropriations; an added $2.0 million SGF for the Office of Information Technology Services’ IT emergency account; and $1.5 million placed into a technology communications fee fund to support an electronic regulation system under the Secretary of State. The committee also added $200,000 SGF to meet a 20% state…