The FY 2027 Budget and What It Means for Kansas Kids and Families
Megan Leopold | April 7, 2026 (Updated April 10)
Before wrapping up most of their work during the last week of the legislative session, lawmakers passed the state budget plan, which designates dollars for state agencies and programs. As we review lawmakers’ work on the state budget this year, we are reminded of the process the final budget plan underwent – and the state dollars that will cascade down to Kansas families in multiple ways.
How It Began
While the Legislature typically uses the Governor’s budget proposal as the base from which lawmakers work, the 2026 Legislature diverged from this process once again. As they did in 2025, the House and Senate began the legislative session with their own versions of the budget that were crafted over the interim, prior to the release of the Governor’s budget.
Before session even began, a Special Legislative Budget Committee met several times to hear briefings on each state agency’s budget to inform both chambers’ base budget bills.
With the goal of cutting the FY 2027 budget by $200 million, these extra days could have offered a needed opportunity to broadly examine the state’s priorities and find sustainable ways to curb current and future spending. Unfortunately, this opportunity was lost as the Special Committee, after several days of listening to requests from agencies, refrained from including any new agency requests in the base budget.
This decision was problematic for two main reasons. First, a blanket cut of all new requests is not an effective way to cut spending on a large scale. While some requests are funding for new programs, the majority are requests to maintain current programs that are seeing growth or uphold operations through the renewal of contracts or the purchase of new equipment. While the initial cut looked substantial, many of the agency’s new requests were deemed necessary during the legislative session and added back into the budget, undoing much of the Special Committee’s initial decision to eliminate new spending.
Most importantly, lawmakers were left with no room for the in-depth discussions required to implement responsible spending cuts. The Special Committee could have spent its time more wisely by going in-depth into agency spending, but instead left that to the budget committees during the expedited legislative session.
With the state budget projected to continue spending into the red in the next fiscal year, the need to curb spending is not going away. Legislators must be prepared to inspect their priorities and how they can be reflected in a pared down budget — without arbitrarily cutting programs that help Kansas kids succeed.
The Messy Middle
Given the process, it is not a surprise that the Legislature fell short of their goal to cut $200 million from the FY 2027 budget. Throughout session, lawmakers voiced frustration that the budget continued a trend of spending more than the state brings in. They pointed out that the FY 2027 budget is an increase of $25.5 million from state funds above the FY 2026 approved budget, with expenditures exceeding expected state revenues by $475.3 million. Furthermore, while a healthy State General Fund ending balance and Budget Stabilization Fund allow the state to continue spending at the current rate, these backstops will not be available for long unless spending is curbed in future years.
Other lawmakers expressed concerns about the priorities reflected in the budget by pointing out that it doesn’t fully fund K-12 special education or do enough to address state employee pay. The final budget includes an additional $6.0 million for special education, which is significantly less than the $92.2 million requested by the Kansas State Department of Education. It also includes a 1% pay increase for state employees, neither of which, many legislators argued, comes close to meeting the needs of the state to attract and retain reliable workers.
Unfortunately, legislators are caught between a need to cut spending and the reality that programs and services become more expensive over time, especially as many see increased demand. It costs more each year to simply maintain employee benefits, health insurance for children, and K-12 education at a stable level, much less increasing the reach of state programs. At the same time, tax cuts and economic development initiatives passed in the past several sessions have greatly decreased revenue coming into the state, forcing the need to spend less.
As we reflect on this year’s budget, we are tracking several items directly linked to the well-being of children, including the following.
| Budget Items for FY 2027 | Agency Request | Final Budget |
|
Blueprint for Literacy |
$5.5 million SGF |
$2.7 million SGF |
|
Funds to Improve the SNAP Error Rate |
$1.3 million SGF |
$930,844 SGF |
|
Funds for the Increased State Match for SNAP Administration Required by the Federal Government |
$12.1 million SGF |
$12.1 million SGF was |
|
HCBS Community Support Waiver |
$3.7 million SGF |
$1.8 million SGF |
|
HCBS Technology Assisted Waiver |
$3.0 million SGF |
$2.5 million SGF |
|
Funding to Create 15-30 Behavioral Health Beds for Children at Kansas Neurological Institute |
N/A |
$2.0 million State Institutions Building Fund |
|
Mental Health Intervention Team (MHIT) |
$16.0 million SGF |
$10.0 million SGF |
|
Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) |
$26.0 million SGF |
$15.0 million SGF |
|
Community-Based Primary Care Clinics |
N/A |
$3.0 million SGF |
|
Language Regarding Immunizations *This item was vetoed by the Governor; the House overrode this line-item veto 84-39 while the Senate didn't take it up |
N/A |
Language directing KDHE to implement the child, adolescent, and adult immunization schedules from the CDC (Veto Sustained) |
Despite the successes we saw in this budget, the inability of the Legislature to curb spending means there are challenging times ahead. Lawmakers will need to make difficult decisions about what the state can afford to continue funding, putting important programs at risk. It is imperative that advocates continue educating lawmakers on the importance of programs that help ensure safety and security in a child’s earliest years.
How Does the Budget Process End?
While passing the budget bill through the Legislature is an accomplishment, the process is not yet complete. This year’s budget bill, HB 2513, was sent to the Governor on March 30, 2026. She now has 10 days to line-item veto parts of the bill with which she does not agree.
Unlike policy bills that must be vetoed in totality, appropriations bills can have specific parts vetoed. This can range from a single line to an entire multi-page section. For example, we are watching to see if the Governor will choose to veto the language in the budget bill (HB 2513) regarding vaccine schedules. She could also choose to delete any funds and/or language allocated to a new program or initiative.
While they provide more flexibility than with policy bills, line-item vetoes have their limits. For example, funds added for a specific program can be difficult to delete because they are often added to an existing fund that has a variety of purposes. Should the fund be deleted, it would delete the entirety of the funding, putting other programs at risk. In such cases, the Governor may choose to delete language that directs the agency to spend money on a particular program. If no such language exists, the Governor’s options are limited.
Another limitation is that line-item vetoes can only delete what is in the bill. If the Governor feels something is underfunded, there is no way to add funding to the bill at this point in the process. Likewise, there is no option to add language that would direct spending or create a new initiative.
Once the Governor has the chance to finalize her vetoes, a message will be relayed to the Legislature, which will begin strategizing their approach to possible overrides. In the past, the Legislature has overridden vetoes through two methods: individually and by grouping several together in a package. Generally, some line-item vetoes are not challenged, but each session brings a new tactic, so we will wait and see.
Veto Update: April 10, 2026
On the last day of her ten-day time frame, the Governor returned HB 2513 to the Legislature with 31 line-item vetoes. The House and Senate attempted to override vetoes individually and by grouping several together in packages. In the end, they successfully overrode 11 of them. As shown in the table above, the only item we had been watching that was impacted by a veto was the language directing KDHE to implement the child, adolescent, and adult immunization schedules from the CDC. This veto was sustained, removing the language from the final bill.
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