Senate passes spending plan that would need nearly $800M in new taxes over 2 years

The Senate chamber of the Kansas Statehouse is pictured July 23, 2014 in Topeka.

? The Kansas Senate late Sunday passed and sent to the House a spending plan for the next two years that would require $800 million in additional revenue.

That figure does not include any new funding for public schools, which is being handled in separate legislation.

The so-called “omnibus” budget bill addresses items that the Senate put off when it passed its main budget bill in March because legislators wanted more information at the time.

The bill would provide a 2 percent pay raise for state employees, most of whom haven’t seen a cost-of-living adjustment in more than a decade. It also would provide a 5 percent raise, to $9.45 an hour, for people who stay home to take care of family members who qualify for Medicaid-funded home and community-based services.

Another key feature is that it would fully fund payments into the Kansas Public Employees Retirement System in fiscal year 2018, but it skips one quarterly payment in 2019. That missed payment, as well as one that was missed this year, would be repaid over time, with interest.

It also provides $7 million in additional funding for Osawatomie State Hospital for general operations and the addition of 20 psychiatric beds.

During debate Sunday night, senators added an amendment by Majority Leader Jim Denning, R-Overland Park, to cap the total amount of bonded indebtedness that the Kansas Department of Transportation can carry at $1.9 billion. He said that was a response to a House proposal that would require KDOT to go above that limit next year, something he said the agency’s cash flow could not sustain.

Sen. Marci Francisco, D-Lawrence, also added an amendment that restricts the ability of the Kansas State Historical Society to raise entrance fees at Constitution Hall in Lecompton. Francisco offered that at the request of Rep. Tom Sloan, R-Lawrence, whose district includes the historic site.

Sloan said the Historical Society had raised the fees recently, resulting in a drop in visitors to the site.

Budget officials estimate the plan would require $300 million in new revenue for the fiscal year that begins July 1, and another $500 million the following year.

The House so far has not passed any spending plan for the next two years.

Kansas lawmakers had been meeting throughout the weekend trying to reach agreement on a budget, school finance and a tax package.

Sen. Ty Masterson, R-Andover, tried unsuccessfully to delete all new spending in the bill, other than money to restore the 4 percent cut made last year in Medicaid reimbursement rates to health care providers.

“The general population we serve is not in favor of raising spending and raising taxes,” Masterson argued, citing two recent public opinion polls.

But Sen. John Doll, R-Garden City, said the most accurate poll was the 2016 election.

“There are many of us in here who ran against incumbents that still believed that the policies that were passed in 2012 were still effective,” said Doll, who defeated the more conservative Sen. Larry Powell in the 2016 GOP primary. “They still believed the Brownback tax cuts have been the magic bullet. I think we have seen (that they weren’t) by the deterioration of our highways, school funding gone. This here, we’ll take away the raises that we’re going to give to state employees who haven’t had them for 11 years.”

Masterson’s amendment received only 12 votes.

Minutes later, the Senate voted 27-13 to pass the bill and send it to the House.

“We have to stop shifting money out of fee-funded agencies and taking money away from other areas to plug the hole,” Sen. Carolyn McGinn, R-Sedgwick, who chairs the Senate budget committee, said in closing the debate.

The House budget committee has spent the last few days putting the final touches on its own two-year budget plan.

Lawmakers will be back at work on Monday, the 108th day of the session.