To testify regarding the State Hospitals budget, email Francisca Hernandez at Social.Svc.Budget@house.ks.gov.  Testimony will be due on Tuesday, January 21, and the hearing is at 3:30 p.m. in the House Social Services Budget Committee.  The Committee has many new members, so it is worthwhile to get to know them as soon as possible if you have items to come before the committee.  See Committee information here:  https://www.kslegislature.gov/li/b2025_26/committees/ctte_h_soc_srvcs_bdgt_1/

Legislative Leadership established an expedited budget process this session with budget hearings beginning this week.  Typically, we wouldn't start attending budget hearings for another 2 weeks or so, but the Legislature decided not to wait for the Governors Budget Report to be presented and analyzed first.  Instead, a Special Committee on Legislative Budget established a legislative budget proposal in December and has already introduced HB 2007 to begin hearings immediately.  We will talk more about this and other 2025 issues at our monthly KMHC Meeting next Wednesday.  

The House Appropriations Committee intends to pass the session's major budget bill through the House and pass it on to the Senate for action in February.  This will require budget subcommittees to work very quickly to get their recommendations to the Appropriations Committee.  Appropriations will put together the major budget bill for the full House to consider - with the Senate intending to work on whatever the House passes to them.  There will not be a parallel budget subcommittee process in the Senate this year.  It appears the full House budget will be worked on by the Senate Ways and Means Committee before going to the full Senate.  It is unclear how much opportunity for public input will be scheduled in the Senate - so advocates should plan to participate in House budget committee hearings if possible.

Additionally, the House Appropriations Committee has asked state agencies to provide a list of potential budget cuts of 7.5% (excluding caseloads, aid to public schools, and debt service).  There is also talk of maybe implementing a "pay go" rule at the committee level - requiring any additional expenditures to be offset by cuts elsewhere.  If that happens, committee members may be surprised to see how their options are limited.  The Legislative Budget (HB 2007) as proposed by the interim committee was based on the agency requests as submitted to the Governor and approved by the 2024 Legislature, but stripped out most reappropriations, funding that was identified as "one time" funding, all enhancement requests and pay increase proposals.  So, there are approved programs that will require new authorization this year - such as the academic workforce initiative approved last session called the Behavioral Health Centers of Excellence.  We are all learning the new process, so hopefully there will be flexibility built in.