photo by: Tim Carpenter/Kansas Reflector

Rep. Sean Tarwater, R-Stilwell, questions additional funding sought by Kansas Office of Veterans Services after moving from a privately owned structure in Topeka to Landon State Office Building. The issue came up during a House Appropriations Committee meeting on the new state budget.

TOPEKA — The Kansas House budget committee continued adjusting a bare-bones state government appropriations bill that deleted more than $540 million from agency requests for program enhancements, salary adjustments and hiring new employees.

Subcommittees of the House Appropriations Committee have been meeting since mid-January to make additions or subtractions that would subsequently be considered by the full House and Senate before the finished product went to Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly. GOP leadership is in a rush to tweak the current 2026 fiscal year budget and pass a budget for fiscal year 2027 before adjourning so incumbents can hit the campaign trail.

Dylan Dear, assistant director for fiscal affairs at the nonpartisan Kansas Legislative Research Department, told members of the committee that an interim House and Senate panel placed the starting point of budget talks in House Bill 2434. In that baseline bill, he said, there was no new money for escalating wages of state employees, hiring personnel or bolstering agency programs. Portions of the proposed budgets — capitol improvements, for example — were left intact.

An array of House subcommittees have started sharing with their peers a collection of ideas for refining the budget draft.

“Some of that money is restored. Some of that money is further deleted. Other adjustments are being made,” Dear said.

No agency or individual sought to testify Monday on the unfinished bill, but subcommittee recommendations did draw attention of legislators.

Rep. David Buehler, a Lansing Republican, said his subcommittee wanted to restore $650,000 for operating expenses of the Kansas Office of Veterans Services that was dropped from the current year’s budget.

In terms of the upcoming budget, Buehler said the subcommittee endorsed a $77,000 increase to cover higher office rent after the Office of Veterans Services moved from a privately owned structure in Topeka into a larger space in the Landon State Office Building.

Rep. Sean Tarwater, R-Stilwell, said he was puzzled the Office of Veterans Services’ rent costs went up upon relocating to a state-owned building. There has been an unusually high number of agency moves in the past year because of the opening of the rebuilt Docking State Office Building.

“Is the agency growing that fast?” Tarwater said. “That’s a lot of money to spend on a move, plus they have to pay for renovations.”

Rep. Barbara Ballard, D-Lawrence, said it was “kind of weird when you’re charging more when you come to a public building.”

Buehler said the subcommittee didn’t include $162,000 to hire an attorney for the Office of Veterans Services, but Buehler said there was merit to the proposal because the current method of seeking legal counsel was “very clunky.”

“It certainly would seem to be a needed function,” said Buehler, a retired U.S. Navy officer.

Each agency seeking more state funding for personnel ought to report to the Legislature the number of full-time staff, how many job vacancies existed and how long those jobs had been empty, said Rep. Barb Wasinger, R-Hays.

Rep. Avery Anderson, R-Newton, said his subcommittee recommended restoring $1.4 million to a substance abuse program serving people who had been incarcerated. He said the governor’s budget wouldn’t fill the gap in a program offering 18-months of support to reduce recidivism.

“Our committee felt like this is a very important program,” Anderson said. “This is one of those things where we believe the governor supports (it) and intentionally kind of underfunds and expects the Legislature to come in and fund it in full.”

— Tim Carpenter reports for Kansas Reflector.