Bill would set permanent $12,000 minimum for local health department state assistance

House Bill 2,397 would raise the minimum annual state assistance available to local health departments to $12,000 and make the recent budget proviso permanent.

Carly summarized the bill as amending KSA 65-242 to increase the assistance amount to $12,000 for local health departments that apply for state financial assistance; the bill would take effect July 1, 2025 upon publication in the statute book.

Christy Kang, director of the local public health program at the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, said 51 of the state's smallest rural and frontier health departments currently receive the minimum and that increasing the minimum from $7,000 to $12,000 would have no direct fiscal impact on the state because it restructures existing funding. "The existing minimum per health department has proven insufficient to meet community public health needs," Kang said, and making the $12,000 level permanent would be more efficient than continuing annual provisos.

Randy Bowman, executive director of the Kansas Association of Local Health Departments, said the change has been a long-standing platform item and would simplify budgeting for departments. He said the two largest counties are on his executive board and do not oppose the change. Committee members asked whether larger counties would see changes; KDHE testimony said the distribution would maintain the levels achieved under recent provisos and that the overall budget (about $5.6 million) would be distributed across 100 local health departments.

The committee took no final action during the hearing.