TOPEKA — Kansas Legislature completed the regular portion of the 2025 session on Thursday, March 27, 2025, passing the budget and many bills. The legislature will return on April 10 for a three-day “veto session.”
The House and Senate both adopted the budget when it passed SB125. SB125 is a fiscally responsible budget that fully funds K-12 education including more money for special education, and provides a salary increase for state employees, including a reduction in the State General Fund from the prior fiscal year.
The budget now heads to the Governor who can sign or veto the whole budget or sign the budget while using her line-item veto power on provisions she doesn’t approve.
SB35 passed the House and the Senate and has been passed to the Governor. SB35 provides property tax relief and removes the state of Kansas from the property tax business by eliminating the statewide mill levies of 1.0 mills for state educational buildings and 0.5 mills for state institution buildings.
Those buildings would be funded via demand transfers from the State General Fund to the Kansas Educational Fund and to the State Institutions Building Fund. The transfer to the EBF would be $56.0 million in FY 2027 and would be adjusted in future years to reflect the average percentage change in taxable value of all property in the state of the preceding 10 years. The transfer to the SIBF would be $25.0 million in FY 2027 and would increase by 2 percent of $25.0 million in each future year.
Most Americans believe that only citizens should vote in our elections. However, progressive jurisdictions around the country have discussed allowing non-citizens to vote.
To ensure this doesn’t happen in Kansas, the legislature adopted HCR5004, which if approved by voters, on the ballot in November of 2026, would amend Section 1 of Article 5 of the Kansas Constitution to clarify that no person shall be deemed a qualified elector unless such person is a citizen of the United States, has attained the age of 18, and, unless a residency exception applies to such person, resides in the voting area in which such person seeks to vote.
The Senate re-adopted HCR5011 which, if adopted by a two-thirds majority of each chamber of the Kansas Legislature and approved by voters, would amend the Kansas Constitution to generally limit, for property tax purposes, the growth of taxable value of any real property or residential mobile home personal property to 3 percent per year.
The Senate reaffirmed its support of the Right to Try for Individualized Treatments Act by passing SB250. The bill would authorize a manufacturer operating in an eligible facility to make available individualized investigative treatments and allow individuals with life-threatening or severely debilitating illnesses to request an individualized investigational drug, biologic product, or device from such manufacturers. This bill is now on the Governor’s desk.
I am honored and grateful to represent the 40th Senate District in Kansas.
Please do not hesitate to contact me by email: [email protected] or call me with your concerns. My office number is 785-296-7399 or my cell number is 785-899-4700. If you are in Topeka stop by my office, room 545-S.