Key Votes

SB 521 gives employers a 75% tax credit for paying child care expenses for their workers, setting up on-site child care programs, or pooling resources with other employers to expand community child care availability. Affordable child care is one of the biggest barriers working families face, and this credit changes the economics at the bargaining table by making it significantly cheaper for employers to offer child care as a workplace benefit. Labor supports this bill because employer-provided child care is a real compensation issue for union members with families, and the collaborative investment provision opens new doors for smaller employers to participate.

SB 387 requires school districts to annually verify household income for every at-risk student — an unfunded mandate the Kansas Department of Education warned violates federal regulations and risks $250 million in annual federal school nutrition funding. The bill also blocks schools from participating in the federal Community Eligibility Provision for free meals without first obtaining legislative permission, inserting a political veto into a federal anti-poverty program. Working families with irregular hours or modest wages face the highest documentation barriers, and children who lose at-risk status don't become less poor — their schools just lose the supplemental funding that supports paraprofessional positions, counselors, and support staff. Thirty-nine organizations testified against the bill and only three in favor; even eight Republican senators voted no, citing the burden on resource-stressed rural districts. The Senate passed the bill 22-18 on Emergency Final Action.

HB 2291 creates a "regulatory sandbox" program that allows businesses to apply to have state rules and regulations suspended — including potentially workplace safety and wage protections enforced by the Kansas Department of Labor. The program is overseen by a business-dominated advisory committee with no labor representation, applications are kept secret from the public, and if an agency fails to respond within 30 days, rules are automatically waived. Labor opposed this bill because it undermines the regulations that protect working people on the job, with no transparency or worker voice in the process.

This bill creates a new program in the Attorney General's office that allows businesses to apply to have state regulations waived or suspended for up to three years. Workplace safety rules, wage protections, and other labor regulations are not excluded from the program, and there is no seat for workers or unions on the advisory committee that reviews applications. If an understaffed agency like the Kansas Department of Labor fails to respond to an application within 30 days, the rules are automatically treated as waived — a built-in trap that puts working people at risk.