Kansas legislators hit adjournment Friday for their “spring break” with some big tasks left for their wrap-up session beginning May 1.
Priorities include taxation and budget plans, which will largely be influenced by the amount of school funding legislators decide to add in-light of the Kansas Supreme Court’s ruling last month. In other orders of business, Medicaid expansion supporters are regrouping after the governor’s veto and are holding out hope for another chance at a vote on an amended bill this session.
Lawmakers have made progress on balancing the current budget for the fiscal year which ends in June, but solutions for the coming years have seen little progress. Revenue shortfalls are projected to total more than $1 billion over the next two fiscal years.
Republican Senate President Susan Wagle said the slow progress was expected.
In February, the House and Senate did advance a tax increase bill, but Gov. Sam Brownback vetoed the plan. Lawmakers didn’t have the votes to stage a successful override of the veto. The same occurred with Medicaid expansion in the past couple of weeks where the two chambers of the legislature were short a combined total of five votes for a veto-override.