March 30, 2025
The Kansas Legislature adjourned the regular part of the 2025 Legislative Session before midnight on Thursday. Lawmakers spent several long days and nights last week in conference committees and on the floor approving bills to send to Governor Kelly’s desk.
By law, the Governor has ten days from when legislation is presented to her office to either sign, veto or allow a bill to become law without her signature. The Legislature accounted for this timeline and will be returning to Topeka on April 10 for a three-day veto session. They worked to finish their work on any bills that are at risk of a potential veto while leaving a few potentially controversial conference committee reports to wrap up in April.
Taxes and budget are typically the last pieces of business to close out a legislative session and dominate the headlines. Below is a recap of those issues, as well as other key issues that received final legislative approval before Thursday’s adjournment.
Despite making property tax relief a top campaign promise last fall, while the Senate had the required two-thirds votes, the Kansas House of Representatives fell short of the required votes to pass the comprehensive reform they had hoped for. The proposed constitutional amendment, Senate Substitute for House Concurrent Resolution 5011, would have capped property appraisals at 4% annually.
While the sweeping reform did not materialize, lawmakers did pass more modest tax relief measures, including a bill that would eliminate a 1.5-mill property tax levy that previously funded maintenance and renovations for state buildings. Senate Bill 35 will provide minimal relief to homeowners, with estimated savings ranging from $25.88 for a $150,000 home to $258.75 for a $1.5 million property. Those dollars will be backfilled from the state general fund, with $56 million allocated to offset the 1-mill tax cut and $25 million for the half-mill reduction.
The legislature advanced a significant tax reform that gradually moves the state to a single income tax rate, contingent on state revenues exceeding a specific threshold. Senate Bill 269, backed by the Kansas Chamber, reduces individual income tax rates from the current two brackets (5.58% and 5.2%) to a single 4% rate when state income tax revenues plus inflation surpass $5.96 billion. Corporate tax rates would subsequently be reduced, with the goal of creating a more competitive business environment and potentially attracting new economic development to the state. The legislation includes a safeguard preventing tax cuts if the state's rainy-day fund falls below 15% of general fund tax receipts, addressing concerns about fiscal stability.
Governor Kelly is expected to veto the bill, continuing a long-standing legislative standoff over tax policy. However, the Senate's initial vote suggests a potential veto override, with the chamber passing the bill 30-10 and achieving the two-thirds majority required for overriding a gubernatorial veto. The House vote of 84-38 is three votes short needed to override a veto, but efforts will surely be made to find those votes for a veto session override attempt.
In a departure from previous years, the legislature crafted the state's fiscal year 2026 budget entirely on its own, bypassing Governor Kelly's initial proposal. The new budget process reflects legislative leadership's long-held desire for greater control over state spending.
After many rounds of negotiations between House and Senate budget leaders, the approved $10.63 billion state general fund budget includes a 1.5% across-the-board cut for agencies. However, despite efforts to reduce spending, budget projections show deficits in the out years – approximately $461.5 million in the red by 2028 and $877.2 million by 2029. It does maintain a substantial rainy-day fund of about $1.8 billion.
Senate Bill 125 incorporates several notable allocations, including $40 million for state employee pay raises and $10 million for special education, which is significantly less than the governor's original proposal. Kelly is expected to line-item veto the Legislature’s proposal, with some questioning an outright veto of the entire bill. Last week’s tight votes – particularly 24-16 in the Senate – may prove budget overrides complicated. Below is a list of some of the budget highlights and click here for additional compromises reached by the conference committee.
Budget Highlights
Significant changes to election procedures were made this week. The legislature successfully overrode Governor Kelly's veto of a bill eliminating the three-day grace period for mail-in ballots. Senate Bill 4 will require ballots to be received by 7:00 p.m. on Election Day to be counted. Simultaneously, lawmakers approved a constitutional amendment, House Concurrent Resolution 5004, that would modify the state constitution to explicitly state only U.S. citizens can vote in Kansas elections. The amendment is set for voter consideration in November 2026.
Both legislative actions align with similar efforts in eight other states that have passed comparable election-related constitutional amendments in recent years, reflecting a broader national trend of tightening voting regulations.
The House and Senate also passed House Bill 2022 which amends the definition of “special election” and specifies the timing of elections required for the issuance of bonds in municipalities. The bill makes conforming amendments to other provisions of election law concerning special elections.
The Legislature did not take action on Senate Bill 197, the STAR bonds renewal and expansion bill. Instead, the budget conference committee added the following language as 1-year provisos:
Senate Bill 197 remains alive for the 2026 Legislative Session when the program needs to be renewed.
Several motions were made in the Senate on Wednesday night to bring four bills out of committee for debate on the Senate Floor Thursday. The motions included:
All four of the motions were defeated on procedural votes and were not debated on Senate General Orders.
The following are bills that passed the Legislature this week and are on their way to the Governor:
Substitute for Senate Bill 9 creates the Kansas Land and Military Installation Protection Act and requires foreign principals from countries of concern that own or acquire any interest in non-residential real property located within 100 miles of the boundary of any military installation located in Kansas or an adjacent state to register such interest with the Attorney General. The bill also prohibits government agencies from purchasing or acquiring drones whose critical components were produced in a country of concern, or whose critical components were produced or owned by a foreign principal.
Senate Bill 24 expands the eligibility requirements to participate in the Kansas Promise Scholarship Program to nonpublic community and technical colleges and increases the maximum amount that could be appropriated to the program from $10 million to $15 million.
Senate Bill 30 requires adoption of new occupational licenses and material changes to existing licenses by certain state agencies to be approved by the Legislature. The bill would also require agencies to annually report certain information to the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules and Regulations. Exempt from the reviews include the Behavioral Sciences Regulatory Board, Board of Examiners in Optometry, Board of Nursing, Kansas Dental Board, State Board of Healing Arts, State Board of Pharmacy, and the State Board of Technical Professions.
Senate Bill 54 which limits discovery and disclosure of third-party litigation funding agreements and requires reporting of such agreements to the judicial council for study. The Senate concurred with the House changes.
Senate Bill 237 amends the Scrap Metal Theft Reduction Act by authorizing law enforcement officers to conduct investigations of violations and require, upon an investigation’s conclusion, investigative reports to be submitted to the Attorney General, regardless of whether any local action was taken because of the investigation.
House Bill 2037 increases the membership of the council on travel and tourism and equalizes the allocation of funds from the matching grant program for the promotion of tourism for private, public, and nonprofit entities and removes the restriction on the percentage of such funds granted to a single entity.
House Bill 2107 establishes a two-year statute of limitations for wildfire-related claims against an electric public utility. It authorizes the recovery of certain damages, limits the recovery of punitive damages, and requires the Kansas Corporation Commission to convene a workshop on wildfire risks and utility mitigation efforts.
House Bill 2109 exempts public utility from civil liability relating to any utility pole attachment, access, operation, maintenance, or removal of law enforcement cameras or equipment.
House Bill 2134 makes changes to the open records and open meetings law including limiting some charges for furnishing records and the employee time required to make records available, exempting records in closed investigations where no violations are found as well as records that contain obscene materials and requires county/district attorneys to file reports on open records/meeting violations with the attorney general in October instead of January. The bill also provides that a public body or agency voluntarily electing to livestream a meeting must ensure that all aspects of the meeting are available through the selected medium for the public to observe.
House Bill 2152, the local investment public funds bill that makes changes to how the state and local units of government invest their idle funds.
Senate Substitute for House Bill 2172 creates a 16-member Water Program Task Force and a five-member Water Planning Work Group to study and make recommendations to the Legislature on water policy and funding.
House Bill 2228 requires a political subdivision hold an open meeting to discuss a local government contingency fee contract for legal services before approving such contract and requiring the attorney general to approve such contracts.
House Bill 2304 which requires local governments to report certain local economic development incentive program information to the Secretary of Commerce. The House concurred with the Senate amendments. The bill now goes to the Governor for her consideration.
House Bill 2342 authorizes the Secretary of Commerce to request the KBI conduct a state and national criminal history record check on any final applicant for, or an employee in, a sensitive position within the Department of Commerce. It also requires the Secretary of Labor to conduct state and national criminal history record checks on employees who have access to federal tax information received directly from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
The following are bills that passed the will likely be discussed during the April Veto Session:
The Senate Commerce Committee amended House Bill 2119 to provide a reduced Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) instead of the full repeal passed by the House. The bill was not taken up on the Senate Floor but will likely be discussed by the Commerce Conference Committee during the Veto Session in April.
A considerable amount of effort was spent on the last day of the session to force a vote on Senate Bill 51, the Data Center Tax Incentive bill, in the House, however, the efforts failed. The bill offers substantial sales tax exemptions to data centers that invest at least $250 million and employ 20 people. The Department of Commerce reports 14 potential data center projects in their pipeline, representing over $15 billion in possible investment in Kansas. It is expected the issue will be discussed during the veto session.
Senate Bill 52, the bill that would re-establish the Kansas film industry incentives through a Kansas Film and Digital Media Production Development Program has stalled in House. The bill, which has a $5 million cap on the program and limits the maximum credit per taxpayer to $1 million, passed both chambers with strong bipartisan support in 2024 but was vetoed as part of a larger tax package. We expect the issue to be discussed during the Veto session.
House Bill 2294, a negotiated bill between legislators and the Governor, would reduce certain license fees and training requirements for staff of childcare centers, create a process for daycare facility licenses to apply for a temporary waiver and transfer childcare programs to the Kansas Office of Early Childhood. Child advocates have expressed concerns with the bill, and it stalled in the conference committee. It is likely it will be discussed during Veto Session.
House Bill 2343 which creates the no-impact home-based business fairness act, supporting the development and growth of such businesses by limiting the regulatory power of municipalities, was not taken up by the Senate Conference Committee. There is still interest by proponents of the bill in considering the bill, so it will likely be discussed during by the Commerce Conference Committee during the Veto Session.
© Copyright 2025 KSCPA | All Rights Reserved