photo by: Bremen Keasey

O’Connell Children’s Center, located at 1925 Delaware St. in Lawrence. The institution, which provides foster care and other services for at-risk youth, could lose out on $1 million in the 2026 budget from a line-item veto from Gov. Laura Kelly.

Gov. Laura Kelly has vetoed a $1 million allocation for a Lawrence-based children’s center, which the center’s executive director said would have been used to “fill a gap” in the system for youth in foster care.

But, as the Legislature attempts to override the governor’s dozens of line-item vetoes, there’s the possibility that the funding could still be coming.

O’Connell Children’s Shelter, at 1925 Delaware St., provides services for young people in foster care and other at-risk youth. The $1 million provision that Kelly vetoed would have come through the Kansas Department of Corrections, and the shelter’s executive director, Gina Meier-Hummel, said it would have been used to help care for youth who are “bouncing around the system.”

Meier-Hummel told the Journal-World that part of the center’s goal is to better serve young people in the foster care system who have had to move around frequently. She said the circumstances that lead to a child needing to be put in foster care are often already traumatic. The need to move children around adds further trauma, making it even tougher for kids who might be struggling.

Some young people in foster care might have higher needs, she said, which can range from high emotional deregulation to substance use issues, but not enough to warrant a more involved level of care, like a treatment program. Meier-Hummel said there are lots of young people just below that level, and O’Connell Children’s Center’s plan was to use the extra funding to provide staff with specialized training and create a space specifically for those young people.

“We can’t be an answer for every single one of those youths, but we want to do our part,” Meier-Hummel said. “We want to fill a gap in the system.”

In explaining the reasoning behind the veto, Kelly said that while she appreciates providing services for youth in need, she felt the fact the funds went to only one specific place “circumvents the established grant process” in the state, which would “ensur(e) that services provided are the best quality at the best price.”

“We have made great progress towards eliminating ‘no bid-contracts’ recently. We should not take an unnecessary step back,” Kelly said.

Later Thursday afternoon, Meier-Hummel said she’d heard about the Senate voting to override the governor’s vetoes. If the House also approves that override, then there will be no issue with the funding that was allocated. Regardless of what happens, however, Meier-Hummel said the center, which has been around for almost 50 years, still aims to expand those services to help more young people in Kansas.

“There’s a population of young people the system is not doing a good job of taking care of right now. We want to be an answer for those kids,” Meier-Hummel said.