A Diminishing KEY Fund Puts Kids at Risk
Megan Leopold | December 3, 2025
The first five years of life are critical to children’s lifelong wellness and our future prosperity as a state. It’s with this understanding that, in 1999, Kansas legislators made a bold plan to dedicate earnings from the Master Tobacco Settlement (MTS) to an endowment fund called the Kansas Endowment for Youth (KEY). Each year, earnings from the KEY Fund would transfer to the Children’s Initiatives Fund (CIF) to support programs serving our littlest Kansans.
CIF’s Wide Reach
There’s a lot to lose if KEY Funds can no longer keep up with CIF expenditures. Approximately 45% of CIF expenditures fund Early Childhood Block Grants (ECBG), which support children ages birth to five with identified risk factors. In 2024, 63 Kansas counties received ECBG dollars, ensuring that more than 8,000 children received needed services like preschool, home visiting, literacy activities, and parent education. Other CIF funds go toward statewide efforts like Child Care Assistance and Tiny-K services.
The CIF had several notable achievements in 2024 alone. These would likely not have been possible without sustainable CIF funding.
- 96% of the 4,115 preschoolers enrolled in the Kansas Preschool Program showed improvement in literacy and 97% showed improvement in math from the beginning of the program year to the end
- More than 8,000 home visits were conducted through the Maternal Child Health Home Visiting program
- 653,632 books were distributed directly to children across the state
- 3,605 children received family preservation services to keep kids safe at home and prevent the need for foster care
- 11,610 children with a disability or a developmental delay received early intervention services
Diminishing Funds
Unfortunately, due to regular sweeps from the KEY Fund to the State General Fund (SGF), the tobacco earnings have not had time to accrue interest. Now, with decreasing MTS payments, the KEY Fund is losing its ability to keep up with CIF expenditures, much less grow the fund. This puts Kansas communities at risk of losing important children’s programs that help kids thrive in their earliest years.
Second, between 2001 and 2018, more than $235 million was transferred out of the KEY Fund and CIF to cover shortfalls in the State General Fund (SGF). This misuse affected programmatic funding in those particular years and hindered the effort to create a self-sustaining endowment that would grow with time.
Taking Action to Ensure Communities Thrive
Now is the time to take action to keep children in Kansas communities thriving and learning. To continue the investment in positive outcomes for Kansas kids, the Kansas Legislature should:
-
Adopt the Kansas Children’s Cabinet budget recommendations to ensure KEY Funds are allocated to evidence-based programs.
-
Invest one-time revenue streams to the KEY Fund to create a self-supporting endowment fund as was originally intended by 1999 legislation.
- Utilize State General Funds instead of CIF dollars to meet matching requirements for federal programs.
Share
