Committee on Local Government advances House Bill 2160, Kansas Municipal Employee Whistleblower Act

The Committee on Local Government voted to send House Bill 2160, the Kansas Municipal Employee Whistleblower Act, favorably out of committee after adopting an amendment that defines key terms and narrows a protected-disclosure sentence, the committee chair announced.

The bill, explained to the committee by the committee revisor, would model municipal protections on the existing state employee whistleblower law (K.S.A. 75-2973) and would give municipal employees the same legal protections for reporting unlawful or dangerous conduct by their employing agency. Unlike the state employee process, which generally proceeds through the Civil Service Board before district court, the municipal bill would give municipal employees a direct cause of action in district…