Conference committee swaps SB 24 for SB 44 text, delays Title IV expansion one year and raises Promise scholarship cap

A Committee on Education conference committee agreed to strike the current contents of Senate Bill 24 and insert the contents of Senate Bill 44 as amended by the House Committee of the Whole, with a one-year delay for adding two schools under the bill's Title IV provision and an increase in the scholarship appropriation cap from $10,000,000 to $15,000,000.

The change would delay the revised definition of "eligible postsecondary educational institution" until July 1, 2026, while the higher appropriation cap would take effect on July 1, 2025, according to staff discussion during the meeting.

The move comes as the state Promise scholarship program has reached its current statutory cap. "So we're essentially at the cap," said Heather Morgan, a staff member, explaining that when a student qualifies for the scholarship the program reserves funding for that student and that the reservation has a "stacking effect," which led the program to stop accepting applications this fall. Morgan said there is no budgeted money above the current $10,000,000 cap in the conference committee report being prepared.

Tamara, a committee staff member, summarized the agreement: "Strike the current contents of Senate Bill 24 and insert the contents of Senate Bill 44 as amended by the House Committee of the Whole. That would include two sections. The first section is the definitions ... that would be delayed by one year, so the effective date of that would be July 1, 2026. The other section ... includes the cap on the appropriations. That would be increased from $10,000,000 to $15,000,000, and that would take effect on July 1, 2025." (Tamara's full title was not specified in the transcript.)

Representative Estes introduced the proposed substitution of bills, and the Senate side indicated acceptance. "The Senate accepts. Anything else?" the presiding chair asked; the House responded that it had "nothing else." The committee then sought confirmation of outstanding fiscal numbers before finalizing an agreement.

Senator Sykes said she was not comfortable signing the agreement without confirmation of whether new appropriations would accompany the cap increase. "With that information, I don't feel comfortable signing. I absolutely agree with increasing the cap, but there's no appropriations. We're adding on additional schools. So I think we're promising a lot to students without having anything to follow through with it. So I would like an agree to disagree," she said.

A committee member estimated the program may already be over the current cap by about $700,000, but staff said they would confirm figures with the fiscal analyst for the Kansas Board of Regents (KBOR). Research staff were asked to get exact numbers before any final sign-off.

No formal roll-call vote on the substitution or the amendment was recorded in the provided transcript. The committee recorded the pending agreement, the plan to raise the cap in the 2025 fiscal year while delaying the addition of the two Title IV schools until 2026, and an outstanding fiscal question that led at least one senator to request an "agree to disagree." The meeting adjourned after that request.

Next steps identified in the discussion: staff will verify current spending against the $10,000,000 cap with KBOR's fiscal analyst and report back to committee members before any final conference report is signed. The transcript does not record a final signed conference report or an executed appropriation beyond the statutory cap change language discussed.