Higher Education Budget panel backs BSRB spending plan after directors outline fee‑fund pressures

The House Committee on Higher Education Budget voted to recommend the Behavioral Sciences Regulatory Board’s (BSRB) biennial budget allocations, the committee chair announced after a voice vote.

The BSRB’s executive director and the Legislature’s budget analyst told the committee the agency is a fee‑funded composite board that licenses about 16,000 professionals across seven mental‑health and behavioral‑health professions and is proposing budgets lower than the legislature approved for the current biennium.

The committee’s budget analyst, Dayton Lamonian of the Kansas Legislative Research Department, summarized the board’s requests and changes, noting the agency’s primary expenditures are salaries for 12 full‑time employees and contractual services. Lamonian described a requested deletion of a temporary full‑time position and an offsetting increase in contractual staff that yields a net reduction in the agency’s request of roughly $20,320 for the noted year, and he said the legislative budget committee concurred.

BSRB Executive Director David Fye said the board’s fiscal 2025 request was $1,206,956, a reduction of about $36,000 from the previous year’s approved amount. He told the committee, “We are a small fee funded agency,” and explained the board pays operating costs from license fees rather than State General Fund appropriations. He added, “If we don't spend that money, it just stays in the fund.”

Fye outlined the BSRB’s projected requests for the next two fiscal years: $1,226,463 for fiscal 2026 and $1,234,000 for fiscal 2027, driven mainly by fringe‑benefit cost indices and modest contractual increases. He confirmed the governor’s recommendation and the amount in House Bill 2007 match the board’s request for the years presented.

Committee members asked about attorney fees and how the agency uses contract counsel. Lamonian and Fye explained the board does not keep in‑house attorneys; legal counsel are contracted to assist with licensing reviews (for example, applications with prior felony convictions), complaint review, drafting disciplinary orders and representation at administrative hearings. Lamonian characterized those expenditures as contractual services and cited attorney fees as a recurring line item that contributed to year‑to‑year adjustments.

Members also queried the board’s fee fund balance and whether fees should be reduced. Fye said the fee fund stood near $2.2 million in early 2023, fell to about $2.03 million in January 2024, and had declined to roughly $1.9 million at the time of testimony; in the most recent month he cited it had been approximately $1.8 million. He outlined board actions to lower fees: the board previously reduced renewal and application fees by $50, cut temporary license fees, and recently voted to reduce many initial license fees by $50 across about 16 professions — an action Fye estimated would lower revenue by about $75,000 annually once implemented.

On staffing and temporary hires, Fye said the board maintains 12 full‑time positions and has used temporary staffing as needed; recent annual temporary‑staffing costs have ranged “about $10,000 to $20,000.” He said the board eliminated an unused unclassified part‑time position and is relying on contract staffing when application volume spikes.

Members asked about the effect of multistate licensing compacts. Fye said the BSRB has joined three compacts (one already operational) and that compacts can change revenue patterns because they alter how licensees are counted and how some multistate practitioners register. He said two compacts expected to be operational later in 2025 could affect revenues and that the board would revise estimates once compacts take effect.

After discussion, Representative Sawyer moved the committee adopt the Legislative Budget Committee’s recommendations for the BSRB appropriations in HB 2007; the motion was seconded and carried by voice vote.

The committee did not record a roll‑call tally in the transcript; the clerk recorded the result as “Motion carries.”

The committee indicated it will use the budget recommendation within the House appropriations process and will consider further changes when it completes budget deliberations.