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Kansas Highway Patrol seeks $4M headquarters move, $26.8M for Salina troop facilities and wellness funding
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Summary
Merle Bridal, chief of staff for the Kansas Highway Patrol, told the Corrections and Public Safety Subcommittee the agency supports the governor's budget recommendations and requested funding to relocate its general headquarters to the Curtis State Office Building, relocate two troop facilities in Salina and replace the South Olathe scale house; the panel approved several amendments and forwarded the budget to full committee.
Merle Bridal, chief of staff for the Kansas Highway Patrol, told the Corrections and Public Safety Subcommittee the agency's FY2026'27 budget priorities include a $4,000,000 headquarters relocation, IT upgrades and large facility moves for troop operations.
Bridal said the governor recommends $2,000,000 in FY2026 and $2,000,000 in FY2027 to relocate the KHP general headquarters to the first floor of the Curtis State Office Building in Topeka. "That new facility will enhance communications capabilities and provide improved working conditions for our dispatch personnel," Bridal said, adding the move consolidates roughly 120 employees currently scattered across multiple floors and two leased buildings.
Why it matters: Bridal told the committee the Curtis move meets the agency's needs at a fraction of the cost of a previously proposed new headquarters. "We withdrew a budget request of $48,300,000 for construction of a new general headquarters due to the availability of space at the Curtis State Office Building," he said, arguing the $4,000,000 plan achieves the same objectives more cost-effectively.
The agency also described a governor-recommended $26,800,000 project to relocate Troop C (a regional headquarters serving 18 counties) and Troop S (special operations, including hazardous device response and K-9 units) from the former Marymount campus to KDOT property in west Salina, colocated with a Salina dispatch center. Bridal said the consolidated project would provide interview and evidence-processing rooms, secure weapons and explosives storage, canine kennels and secure parking for law-enforcement vehicles.
On weigh stations and inspections, Bridal told the panel that KHP completed 34,142 commercial-vehicle inspections in FY2025 and that weigh stations generally operate daytime hours: "Our weigh stations are not typically manned 24 hours a day. They usually operate from 8 to 5." He also said citation revenue is remitted to the state general fund and not retained by KHP.
Bridal outlined a governor-recommended IT infrastructure request of $234,990 from the State Highway Fund to replace two network-security devices and purchase 22 computers for the Salina central dispatch facility.
Mental-health and line-of-duty supports: Bridal said KHP requested $250,000 for a proactive comprehensive wellness program (mental-health counseling including suicide prevention, peer support training, fitness and financial-stability coaching), but that the governor did not include the funding in the recommended budget. Bridal also described a policy proposal — not a direct budget request — to codify assistance by KHP and KBI to local agencies following a line-of-duty death, covering tasks such as funeral traffic control or temporary law-enforcement coverage.
What the subcommittee did: Senator Owens moved to add the IT funding and the FY2026 headquarters appropriation and to include other enhancements; the motion was seconded and approved by voice vote. The subcommittee later approved a separate motion to add $250,000 for the comprehensive wellness program in FY2027. The amended Kansas Highway Patrol budget was forwarded to the full Senate Ways and Means Committee for consideration.
Next steps: The amended KHP budget will be considered by the full Senate Ways and Means Committee; the subcommittee recorded its recommendations by voice vote and did not record a roll-call tally in the transcript.
