The 2020 Legislative Session - in the Rear View Mirror

WIth the new legislative session due to begin in January, we take a look back at how the 2020 Session came to an abrupt end.

When the legislature paused for its early spring break in March, little did they know that a global pandemic would upend rest of the 2020 session and affect all facets of state politics through the summer and fall.

The good news is that the pressure of the impending COVID-19 crisis encouraged both chambers in the statehouse to come to agreement on the state’s $19.9 Billion budget for FY 2021.  Senate Bill 66, the budget measure, was adopted on March 19 by a vote of 99 to 16 in the House and 28 to 10 in the Senate. 

Governor Kelly signed the budget into law on March 25. The budget included increases in base aid to K-12 schools, more funding for community based primary health projects and local health departments, increased provider reimbursement rates for Medicaid providers under the Intellectual/Developmental Disability waiver, enhanced funding for highways and for other programs. 

Overall, the state general fund (SGF) budget increased expenditures from $7.0 billion in 2019 to $7.8 billion in 2020 and $8.0 Billion in 2021. 

Lawmakers boosted the budget for the Senior Care Act by $3 million to help older Kansans stay in their homes. The added funds were withdrawn by the Governor during a round of budget cuts in July.

Legislators’ who left for spring break on March 19 were scheduled to return to Topeka on April 27th for a veto session.  Two items that had been left for the veto session were Medicaid expansion and a proposed constitutional amendment on abortion.

Because of COVID-19, the legislature did not reconvene until May 21. Then, instead of a full veto session they held a marathon day with measures that focused on the Governor’s emergency powers and on making adjustments to the state budget in light of the suddenly pessimistic economic forecast. Experts projected a $1.3 billion shortfall caused by business slowdowns and increased expenses due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Lawmakers’ legislative “day” lasted through the night until the morning of May 22.  Democrats and some moderate Republicans tried to bring the Medicaid expansion issue to the floor; Senate leadership blocked the measure on procedural grounds.  The push for a constitutional amendment on abortion, which lawmakers tied to the passage of the Medicaid legislation, likewise came to an end.

What the legislature did pass was HB 2054-- a bill which addressed the Governor’s emergency authorities and some budgeting matters.  This measure passed by a vote of 76 to 34 in the House and 27 to 11 in the Senate.

A week later, Governor Kelly vetoed the bill, calling it a “high-stakes game of political chicken, combining provisions that are essential to COVID-19 response with a wide ranging, special interest wish list.”  The Governor then called legislators back to Topeka for a special session on June 3-4. 

In the course of the special session, the legislature passed HB 2016 (Special Session) which the Governor signed into law on June 8.  This legislation was the result of compromises on the authorities held by the Legislature and Executive branches. It addressed emergency actions and authority to distribute federal emergency funds related to COVID-19. 

Authority for decision-making was given to the State Finance Council, a group that includes the Governor and legislative leaders. The concept behind HB 2016 was for this group to share decision making to mitigate the need for frequent renewals of the state of emergency declarations through the summer.

The Special Session legislation did not fully address the looming budget shortfalls. 

In July, when projections showed revenues would not be sufficient to meet authorized expenditures, the Governor invoked her authority to create an allotment plan for reducing the budget of state agencies and programs to avoid overspending.    

Fortunately, there are are indications that the budget impact from COVID-19 may not be quite as bad as projected in April 2020.  The November 2020 report from the Consensus Revenue Estimating Group, a committee that makes the formal projections of future tax revenues for the state, acknowledged slow economic recovery from the sudden and severe contraction of the spring of 2020, but expected the Kansas economy to grow 3.6 percent in 2021 and 3.8 percent in calendar year 2022, up slightly from their prior projections.

This article was adapted from a longer feature that appeared in the fall 2020 edition of Keynotes mailed in October. Please contact us to receive your own copy of Keynotes. Sources for this article included the Kansas News Service at ksnewsservice.org; Kansas Public Radio at kansaspublicradio.org; Kansas Legislative website at kslegislature.org; Kansas Division of the Budget at budget.kansas.gov; and the Kansas Department of Revenue at ksrevenue.org and the Kansas Division of the Budget at budget.kansas.gov.

the Capitol in Topeka, photo courtesy of aviper2k7, cc-by-sa 3.0, via wikimedia commons