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 match for a HAVA (Help America Vote Act) election-security grant, which Dear said will draw down an additional $1.0 million in federal funds for county election modernization grants.

Other significant adjustments in the House package included an added $30.0 million SGF for special-education state aid in FY2026 (and the same amount included for FY2027), partial restorations of reappropriations for Larned State Hospital and another hospital program, and debt-service and infrastructure changes in public safety accounts. Dear described a reconsolidation of certain debt-service obligations into the Department of Administration, noting a $3.1 million SGF line related to the Pittsburgh KBI laboratory debt-service would appear in the Department of Administration’s budget.

Dayton Lemunyan, senior fiscal analyst with Kansas Legislative Research, provided additional context on state hospitals and other items after Dear’s overview, and said the documents underlying the briefing — agency budget summaries and a list of Legislative Budget Committee deletions and LBC adjustments — will be distributed to committee members for review.

Why it matters: these adjustments indicate the House committee is selectively restoring funding and directing some new priorities while keeping overall reductions from agency requests; several of the restored or added items have near-term operational impacts (hospitals, election security, forensic lab capacity) and may influence final negotiation with the Senate and the governor.

Details of selected adjustments (as described by staff) - Attorney General: deletion of $248,322 SGF for the VINE (Victim Identification and Notification) system; staff said VINE previously had a mix of federal funding sources, and some federal grants (including VOCA-funded programs) have declined. (Source: Dylan Dear.) - Board of Indigent Defense Services: added approximately $4.0 million SGF and reappropriations in FY2025 to help fund assigned counsel caseloads and expert witness fees (staff characterized this as a partial restoration of lapsed reappropriations). - Legislature: added $3.0 million SGF to reduce the size of reappropriation lapses from the legislative operational budget. - Secretary of State: added $1.5 million to the technology communications fee fund for an electronic regulation-making system; staff noted questions remain about fee-fund use and the Revisor’s Office may be asked for an opinion. Also added $200,000 SGF for the state match on HAVA funds. - Judicial branch: deleted a targeted FY2026 enhancement (about $385,000) that would have provided a 5% salary increase specifically for court reporters; staff said the broader judicial salary adjustments remain but this targeted enhancement was removed. - Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services (state hospitals): partial restorations of reappropriations and added funding for contract nursing were noted (see separate article on state hospitals for details). - Education: added $30.0 million SGF for special-education state aid in FY2026 and FY2027. - Kansas Bureau of Investigation: $3.1 million SGF for Pittsburgh lab debt-service was noted as being reconsolidated under Department of Administration bookkeeping; additional KBI adjustments included infrastructure and IT positions.

Staff said these figures are a moving target while House deliberations continue and that the full packet of budget summaries and LBC deletion descriptions will be circulated to the committee to support further questions.

Additional context and next steps: committee members asked staff for the detailed deletion list and for copies of the budget summaries. Staff said they will distribute those materials and that agencies will present more detail on items (for example contract nursing at state hospitals) in follow-up briefings.