ELLY GRIMM

   • Leader & Times

The state’s budget for fiscal years 2026 through 2029 has officially been signed by Gov. Laura Kelly, according to a release from the State of Kansas.

In the release, Gov. Kelly noted the process did not exactly go smoothly.

“To put it simply, this is a bad budget that went through a bad process. Once again, the Legislature completely ignored my statutorily-required budget proposal that would have put our state back on track to a structural balance between revenues and expenditures,” Gov. Kelly noted in a release from the State of Kansas. “Instead, Legislative Leadership rushed through this session, drafting and passing the budget before April Consensus Revenue Estimates are announced in just 12 days. While a full understanding of the fiscal impact of this budget won’t be known until April 20, a few of its failures are obvious. This budget fails Kansas children by inexplicably cutting funding for mental health services in schools and severely underfunding special education. It cuts core services provided by state agencies to Kansans while protecting funding for the Legislature —whose own budget has doubled in the last few years — and its pet projects. In a truly shameless move, Legislators increased their own salaries by 4 percent after giving themselves a 93 percent pay raise just last year. They gave their own staff a 10 percent increase while offering a mere 1 percent to the state employees who plow our roads, who work in our prisons and our mental health facilities, who keep our communities safe.”

But Kelly signed the budget.

“Despite this being a really bad budget, I will sign it, because the alternative is worse. Due to the ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’ passed by Congress last year, Kansas taxpayers are having to shoulder costs previously absorbed at the federal level,” Gov. Kelly noted in a release. “As a result, our state agencies’ budgets had to be increased. Those millions of dollars of added costs are appropriated in this budget while they were not in last year’s. This is the last budget I will sign as governor. It is my hope the next governor will have a Legislature that is willing to return to the traditional partnership that is more likely to produce a budget that is fiscally responsible, invests in our state’s future wisely, and is befitting the trust Kansans place in us to be good stewards of their resources.”