Proposed Budget Highlights
The recommended budget reflects the priorities the governor heard from Kansans, provides a path back to structural balance, and continues to fully fund Kansas public schools. The budget also makes investments in water, early childhood, health care, public safety, and more. Highlights of the budget include:
Investing in Water
- Fully funds the state water plan.
- Seeks to partner with the Water Program Task Force established by the legislature last year to develop sustainable water programming and identify a sustainable source of funding for the state’s water needs.
K-12 and Early Childhood Education
- Fully funds the Office of Early Childhood.
- Recommends fully funding K-12 education for fiscal 2027 and fiscal 2028.
- Provides funds to eliminate co-payments for students on reduced lunches which will provide access to free meals for more than 34,000 students.
- Increases funding for special education.
- Recommends fully funding the Kansas Blueprint for Literacy to ensure Kansas students have the support and tools necessary to improve their reading skills.
Human Services
- Funds the first year of operations for the South Central Regional Mental Health Hospital, which will add 104 beds of capacity to the state’s system.
- Provides funding to support six local hospitals providing adult inpatient behavioral health services.
- Recommends funds for contracted nurses to maintain an appropriate level of nursing staff in Larned and Osawatomie.
- Allocates funding to fully implement the Community Support Waiver.
- Provides funding to address increased demand for the Technology Assisted waiver, which provides funding for home-based services for children under 21 who require life-sustaining medical equipment and technology.
Public Safety
- Provides funds to relocate Kansas Highway Patrol troops to the new Dispatch Center in Salina.
- Allocates funds to the Department of Wildlife and Parks to restructure law enforcement operations to strengthen public safety statewide.
State Employee Pay
- Applies a statewide 2.5 percent pay adjustment for state employees.
Funding Shifts from New Federal Requirements
- Recommends enhanced state general funds to cover the shifting of administrative costs to operate the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).
- Increases state general funds to administer the oversight of new work requirements placed on SNAP beneficiaries.
- Recommends allocating state general funds to invest in tools to reduce the state’s error rate related to SNAP eligibility processing.