Higher Ed Budget Committee reviews Kansas Campus Restoration Act, funding and match rules

Vice Chair Clark Sanders, chairing the Committee on Higher Education Budget in Representative Howe’s absence, asked staff to present the statutory report and the background on the Kansas Campus Restoration Act.

Brianna Horton, KLRD, gave the committee a brief overview. "SB 18 created the Kansas Campus Restoration Act, authorizing the State Board of Regents to adopt rules and regulations relating to deferred maintenance and demolition of facilities at post secondary education institutions," Horton said. She described the act as focused on deferred maintenance and summarized its funding provisions.

Horton said the act creates a deferred maintenance account for each postsecondary institution to make capital improvement expenditures and that most expenditures from those accounts require a dollar-for-dollar match of nonstate monies from the institution or private sources. She noted exceptions: "The bill requires does not require a match for community colleges, technical colleges, and the municipal university, the Institute of Technology, or from the state educational institutions' deferred maintenance accounts for the use of demolition or raising." Horton described the board’s role administering the fund and the statutory reporting the board must provide to the committee.

Horton also summarized the statutory transfer and distribution language: the bill requires the director of accounts and reports to transfer $32,700,000 from the State General Fund to the fund annually on July 1, 2025, through July 1, 2030 (or as soon as monies are available), and requires the board to distribute an aggregate amount of $30,000,000 from the fund among state educational institutions’ deferred maintenance accounts pursuant to a campus restoration plan developed and approved by the board.

Representative Wagner asked whether the Board of Regents or its staff had data on current campus maintenance spending; Horton said she would work with Chad Bristow, director of facilities with the Kansas Board of Regents, to provide that information. Representative Ammons recalled an earlier report that estimated deferred maintenance in the roughly "$1,000,000,000" range and called the act a start at addressing that need. Horton and committee members said the committee would request more specific figures from KBOR staff.

The presentation was informational; no motion or vote was taken on SB 18 during this meeting.

The committee moved on after members asked staff to follow up with data on current maintenance spending and on estimated costs for demolition the institutions indicated they would pursue.