Kansas Secretary of State's office seeks $1.5M to modernize rulemaking; officials outline efficiency reforms

Clay Barker, deputy secretary of state and general counsel, told the House Committee on Legislative Modernization that the Kansas rulemaking process is built on paper-era procedures and that the Secretary of State's office is asking the Legislature for $1.5 million from the State General Fund to buy a vendor solution to modernize that system.

The request was described during a committee hearing where Barker outlined past efficiency changes in the office and Whitney Temple, director of communications and policy for the Kansas Secretary of State, described a Regulation Modernization Initiative and said the office's request is intended to provide a statewide digital system for drafting, routing and publishing administrative regulations.

Barker told the committee the office operates with a small staff (about 36'to'40 employees) and manages three operating divisions: business services, publications and elections. Business services handles roughly 200,000 filings for corporations, LLCs, partnerships and related records; the publications group manages the Kansas Register and the official repository of adopted regulations; elections handles county election assistance and the statewide voter registration database. "I think we all know that government was not designed with efficiency in mind," Barker said, adding later, "you can't carve fat out of a government the way you can carve fat off a steak." He described several administrative changes already made,…