House ag budget committee holds ‘Budget 101,’ reviews Board of Veterinary Examiners fee-funded budget

The House Agriculture and Natural Resources Budget Committee received an overview of performance-based budgeting and a budget summary for the Board of Veterinary Examiners on an educational "Budget 101" session, Chair Representative Lisa Mosier said, and staff walked members through the board’s fee-funded request and related performance measures.

Legislative Research staffer Dylan Deere said the state’s performance measures “are not new for the state in any way, shape, or form. They go back to the 19 eighties,” and described the most recent rollout as an effort born from an outside review and a multi‑year implementation to inventory programs and attach outcome and output measures.

The briefing explained why performance measures appear alongside budget figures and how agencies produce the measures. Deere told members agencies “absolutely do determine their own questions or their own measures,” and that committee members may ask agencies to add or change measures during budget hearings. Senior fiscal analyst Luke Drury said the Kansas Legislative Research Department is publishing the validated data and a dynamic interface on the KLRD website so members can view performance measures and expenditure data side by side.

Why it matters: Committee members were briefed on how the Legislature will see budget requests this session, with the Legislative Budget Committee’s recommendation serving as the starting point for negotiations. That changes the ordering of the process for members who served under prior procedures and emphasizes the committee’s role in reviewing both performance measures and financing sources.

On the Board of Veterinary Examiners budget, staff reported the board is a biennial, regulatory fee board based in Wamego, Kansas, funded almost entirely by practitioner fees remitted to a Veterinary Examiners Fee Fund. Drury said the agency “is funded entirely with the veterinary examiner's fee fund.” He also noted that 10% of those fee receipts are remitted to the State General Fund and do not return to the board’s budget.

Key numbers and program details included in staff materials: the agency has 3.8 authorized full‑time equivalent positions (the executive director is listed at 0.75 FTE); the agency reported no changes to its FY2025 approved budget; FY2026 requests include an estimated $21,100 increase for private vehicle mileage reimbursements, $1,500 for increased attorney fees, $1,300 for communication (postage/printing), and $882 for other adjustments (primarily data/programming and a reduced fringe estimate). FY2027 requests included roughly $26,100 for private vehicle miles, $25,100 for increases in group health insurance, $25,100 for attorney fees, $1,700 for data and programming services, $1,500 for communication, and $711 for other adjustments. Staff pointed to a fee schedule and noted a relatively recent addition described as a mobile clinic records audit fee.

Staff also provided a 10‑year lookback table showing a 21.7% increase in the agency’s expenditures over ten years compared with a 33.4% increase in the consumer price index for the same period. The budget summary tables identify financing categories (special revenue, federal funds, state general fund listed for completeness) and expenditure categories (salaries and wages, contractual services, commodities, capital outlay, aid to locals, other assistance, capital improvements).

Committee members asked how binding the Legislative Budget Committee (LBC) recommendation is; Drury and Deere said the LBC recommendation is treated as the starting point and that silence on a request is typically deemed approval. Deere said staff will flag differences once the governor’s recommendation (gov rec) is available and provide that comparison to the committee.

No formal vote on the veterinary examiners budget was recorded during the session. The committee chair closed the session by scheduling a formal hearing: "we will officially hear the, veterinary examiner's budget and the board of accountancy and we will plan to work them as well," Representative Lisa Mosier said.

The committee will take up the veterinary examiners’ budget and the Board of Accountancy in the next scheduled hearing, where members may question agency staff, request alternative performance measures, or propose adjustments to the LBC recommendation.