TOPEKA – In an unusual move, the state House of Representatives voted to accept a budget bill already passed by the Senate instead of debating a proposal of its own.
The motion to concur with Senate substitute for House Bill 2373 came from Rep. Clay Aurand, R-Courtland, who voted against the measure himself but said he wanted to vote to move the issue forward.
The motion narrowly passed 64-60. The bill now goes to the governor.
It is identical to a proposal passed by the Senate on Tuesday. It includes 2.75 percent across the board cuts to most state agencies including kindergarten through 12th grade education.
The measure fills all but $70 million of a $328 million budget gap lawmakers have been struggling to fill.
The Senate Taxation Committee is working on several tax proposals to help fill the rest of the gap.
Appropriations Chairman Rep. Kevin Yoder, R-Overland Park, urged House members to vote against the proposal, saying the chamber would have a second chance to debate its own proposal later Thursday afternoon.
“What we are doing here is we are taking the House completely out of the process,” Yoder said.
Last Friday, a House budget proposal failed to gain enough support to pass. The House Appropriations Committee had been working to develop a second proposal but there still didn’t seem to be enough support in the chamber to pass the second bill.
Lawmakers are already eight days into a wrapup session and usually the budget is in a negotiating committee by this time, Aurand argued.
“I just wanted to move this down the road,” he said.
5 Comments
State employees will be happy with the budget because it doesn’t require any pay cuts. Now all the legislature has to do is slash the SRS budget by millions of dollars by eliminating unnecessary staff positions and training programs for state employees. Money saved could be spent on education programs for K-12 students
Oh they did slash the SRS budget, thank you very much. Very nice of them to cut funding for people with disabilities. Now many of them will be out of services and on the streets. Way to go, Kansas Legislature. Now you have yet another problem you have caused by trying to fix your budget shortfall. Oh our highways sure are nice though.
I agree with mbridges the ones who will suffer are the people with disabilities. What about those on welfare who could find a minimum wage job?
What about those on welfare? Does the total $ amount they receive in services exceed what they could earn at the min. wage? Point us to the data, rather than post a boiler plate post. Some goes for the SRS complaint. Post us to the data, so we can write intelligent letters to our legislators. Including pat boiler plate complaints, only informs the legislators, truly represent silly bunch of ignorant fools. Yes in general our hiways are nice, would you rather transport the kids to school events over rotten hiways?
I think it is very fair that all agencies and all people of Kansas share the pain equally. No offense, but if those with disabilities were made immune from these cuts, then would that not be discrimination against all of the other groups? Why should education from K through college eat cuts if others do not? Plus, the Constitution does not say that the government is supposed to support every “disadvantaged” group. Maybe the families of those with disabilities should help out a little more? I know I support my family members that are less fortunate.