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, including moving the Kansas Administrative Regulations (KAR) fully online and ending routine paper publication of the Kansas Register.

Temple said the Regulation Modernization Initiative has developed an RFP that is currently live and will close on February 25; she asked the committee to consider a $1.5 million SGF appropriation to implement a vendor platform that would be offered to all state agencies, boards and commissions. "The current process is outdated, prone to human error, inefficient, and increasingly cumbersome in today's digital age," Temple told the committee. She said the vendor solution would include cybersecurity protections written into the procurement specifications and that the Secretary of State's office expects no new FTEs for its own staff as a result of the implementation.

Both witnesses described recurring challenges with the current multi-step paper process: missing pages, stamping and version-control problems, heavy warehouse storage of printed regulations, and loss of institutional knowledge when experienced staff leave. Barker said the office is fee-funded and typically does not receive SGF support, but the cost was presented as a statewide modernization project that would benefit all agencies. He also described technical and organizational efficiencies the office has pursued, such as migrating legacy mainframe systems to modern platforms, digitizing old records, consolidating some filing responsibilities with other agencies and reducing warehouse footprint and printing costs.

Committee members asked about several policy and implementation details. Temple said the RFP includes cybersecurity requirements and that the vendor would provide services to all state boards and agencies; she said the vendor approach is intended to include smaller licensing boards such as the Board of Healing Arts and the Kansas State Board of Nursing. When asked about the fiscal profile, Temple gave $1,500,000 as the requested amount; when asked later about whether the cost was one-time or recurring she answered it was currently presented as a one-time request but that additional recurring costs could require future requests. Temple also said her office currently has roughly 2.5 staff who work on regulation review and that the procurement is intended to reduce manual workload rather than add staff.

Barker and Temple also discussed statutory and process reforms that might speed rulemaking. Barker identified two existing statutory changes that have affected agency rulemaking: a 5-year review law that requires periodic agency review of regulations (which he said triggered a surge in amendments and new filings when first implemented) and the REINS Act, which requires legislative approval for regulations that impose more than $1,000,000 in costs over five years. He recommended several options for legislative attention including clearer, narrower grants of rulemaking authority in statute, earlier public input in the drafting process, a two-track system that treats technical changes differently from substantive rulemaking, and an "omnibus" or umbrella vehicle to allow agencies to submit multiple low-cost repeal items together. "If you put a bill up, there's nothing better than putting a bill up to have somebody from the sidelines come running over and go, 'I have a reason for that that you didn't realize,'" Barker said, describing the trade-offs agencies face when proposing statutory changes.

Members raised security concerns for election systems; Barker said elections remain a high-priority cybersecurity risk and flagged the voter registration database as a key asset the office protects. Gordon Self, the Legislature's Adviser on Statutes, also testified briefly to remind members that statutory drafting options vary and that the committee should consider whether statutes grant broad or limited regulatory authority.

No formal committee votes or final legislative actions on the funding request were recorded during the hearing. The meeting closed after a committee member requested introduction of a committee bill (RS 0793) related to 2024 Senate Bill 291; the transcript records the committee chair asking that request to be introduced but does not record committee action on that request.

The office plans to proceed with the procurement and has set an RFP closing date; any appropriation from the State General Fund would require subsequent legislative action.