Committee hears bill to raise state match, cap for Kansas conservation districts

A Kansas House committee opened a hearing on Senate Bill 36, which would increase state support for county conservation districts by changing the state-to-county match to 2-to-1 and raising the per-district cap from $25,000 to $50,000, committee staff and witnesses said.

The bill also would move the annual county-certification deadline from Sept. 1 to Nov. 1 and would take effect upon publication in the statute book, Kyle Hamilton, who gave the committee the bill brief, told the panel. "The $25,000 per district appropriation limit would be increased to $50,000 subject to appropriations. And then lastly, such state appropriations would now be dispersed to each district on a 2 to 1 matching basis, not to exceed $50,000 per district," Hamilton said.

The measure matters because conservation districts are the primary local delivery system for several state and federal conservation programs and provide on-the-ground technical and administrative assistance, Dan Meyerhoff, executive director of the Kansas Association of Conservation Districts, told the committee. "What this does is it changes the…