The Kansas House and Senate late last week passed their revisions to the 2009 budget and are waiting to see what Gov. Sebelius will do before they look ahead to 2010.
According to Sen. Jim Barnett, the 2009 budget bill that was passed includes enough reductions to allow the state to balance its budget this year.
“Next year, of course, is going to be very challenging,” Barnett said. “In general, my hope is that we can hold spending flat.”
Rep. Don Hill said there is speculation that Sebelius might use her line-item veto power on the budget.
Barnett said one of the good things about the budget is that the state should be able to catch up.
“It depends on what happens with state revenues,” Barnett said. “But if we just take a breath and control our spending for a year or two we will eventually be able to come back and backfill the areas where we’ve made cuts, particularly in K-12 and higher education.”
This week is turnaround week for the legislature, when committee work on legislation must be completed.
“We have a number of bills to hear in committee and then we’ll spend a lot of time on the floor debating bills and sending them over to the House,” Barnett said.
Hill said representatives will spend all of Thursday and Friday on the House floor to finish legislation that needs to be passed out of the House to stay alive.
One piece of legislation of special interest to Emporia involves incentives that were laid out to bring Hill’s Pet Nutrition to town. A bill currently in the House Economic Development Committee looks at extending a deadline that would have required the company to have 100 employees by the end of 2009 to qualify for the incentives.
“Because of the delay in Hill’s construction, they are not likely to meet that criterion,” Hill said.
Hill also said he will be talking with state budget director Duane Goossen this week to learn about what impact the federal stimulus package will have on the state budget.
Barnett said the Senate Public Health and Welfare Committee has renewed a task force dealing with autism.
“We have a growing concern in our state with autism and how to provide needed diagnosis and services to children with autism,” Barnett said. “By renewing the task force, we continue those efforts to help find long-term solutions for those children.”
Another piece of legislation in the Senate deals with a proposal to place limits on mental health drugs.
“There are many children treated with strong anti-psychotic medication,” Barnett said, “and this has raised concerns about the use of those multiple medicines in children and adolescents. Senate Public Health and Welfare has reached a compromise with interested parties to develop a plan that includes a review board to make recommendations on proper dosing and proper usage of those medications.”