photo by: John Henry/Journal-World File Photo

This file photo from 2008 shows a Kansas Highway Patrol trooper approaching a vehicle after a traffic stop on Kansas Highway 10.

Topeka ? A bill overhauling state laws governing how and when law enforcement agencies can seize and liquidate assets of criminal suspects is now on its way to Gov. Jeff Colyer’s desk.

Currently, law enforcement agencies are allowed to seize cash, vehicles, property and other assets of a criminal suspect if there is reason to believe those assets are proceeds of illegal activity or were instruments used in the commission of a crime.

Once property is seized, agencies can then petition a court to have those assets forfeited and turned over to the agency, which can then liquidate them and use the proceeds for specific law enforcement purposes.

But a 2016 report by the Legislative Post Audit Division found that some law enforcement agencies were not complying with reporting requirements about their seizure activities or restrictions on how the proceeds of forfeited assets can be used.

For example, it found that the Kansas Highway Patrol and the Salina Police Department appeared to have used proceeds of forfeited assets for normal operating expenses, but state law restricts such spending to “special, additional law enforcement purposes.”

Those agencies, however, argued that the money was used for purposes directly tied to the forfeiture process or for a special drug task force.

In recent years, there have also been a number of high-profile cases of authorities seizing assets of individuals who were never formally charged or convicted of any crime.

There have also been complaints that people whose assets are seized are not adequately notified about forfeiture proceedings so they can have time to challenge the forfeiture.

Several bills have been introduced in the Legislature during the past two sessions, prompting the chairs of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees last year to ask the Kansas Judicial Council, an advisory group organized within the judicial branch, to make a recommendation that law enforcement groups, prosecutors, defense attorneys and others involved in asset forfeitures could agree on.

That resulted in House Bill 2459, which cleared the House on Feb. 22 by a vote of 110-7 and which passed the Senate on Thursday, 39-0.

It’s intended to make the forfeiture process more transparent by tightening the reporting requirements for law enforcement agencies.

It would make the Kansas Bureau of Investigation responsible for maintaining a central record-keeping system to track all seized and forfeited assets, including information about the agency that seized the property, whether or not charges are ever filed in the case and the amount of proceeds received from forfeited assets.

It would also strengthen the requirements for providing notice to people whose assets have been seized, as well as others such as mortgage or lien holders, that a forfeiture proceeding is commencing, and it would give the property owners or others with a vested interest in the property additional time to file a claim that the property is exempt from forfeiture.

And although it still allows property to be forfeited even if the person is never charged or convicted, it does place a greater burden on authorities to show that the assets were directly tied to criminal activity.

The bill also would give courts the discretion to limit the amount of property being forfeited if it finds that the value is “grossly disproportionate to the nature and severity of the owner’s conduct.”

Although many in the Legislature hoped for a bill that would go even further in reforming the process, Sen. David Haley, D-Kansas City, who serves on the Judiciary Committee that worked on the bill, called it a good first step.

“It’s a compromise,” he said on the Senate floor. “It’s a good bill, but it’s only a compromise. It’s not really what some of us wanted it to be. That would be that upon the taking of that property, that it would be held — whether it’s money seized, or even a car itself — that it would be held until a conviction was (obtained) by the person who’s taking that property.”