Key Votes

This bill lets just 10% of registered voters sign a petition to freeze local government and school district budgets at prior-year levels, blocking tax revenue increases above inflation plus 3%. The petition mechanism includes no protection for wages and benefits already negotiated in collective bargaining agreements, meaning a successful petition could prevent a school district or city from funding raises it already agreed to pay teachers, public employees, and other union workers. The bill also provides government-funded petition infrastructure by embedding signature pages in tax notices mailed to every property owner.

This bill creates a government-funded petition process that allows just 10% of registered voters to block school districts, cities, and counties from raising property tax revenue above the prior year's level. There is no protection for wages and benefits already negotiated in union contracts — meaning a successful petition could prevent a public employer from funding raises it already agreed to pay. The bill also embeds petition signature pages directly into tax notices mailed to every property owner at taxpayer expense, giving anti-tax groups a built-in organizing tool that labor has no equivalent way to counter.

This amendment to the five-year state budget penalizes school districts financially when staff "encourage, facilitate, or enable" student walkouts — language broad enough to punish a teacher for simply not blocking a door. Public school employees face an impossible choice between exercising professional judgment and exposing their district to funding cuts that hit salaries, staffing levels, and working conditions. The amendment attacks the principle of collective action itself: penalizing institutions for failing to suppress organized protest sets a precedent that could extend to worker actions.

This bill lets just 10% of registered voters in a community block local governments and school districts from raising property tax revenue — even when increases are needed to fund negotiated wage agreements. Protest petition forms would be mailed directly to every property owner at taxpayer expense, giving anti-tax groups a powerful new tool to squeeze the budgets that pay public employees. There is no protection for existing union contracts, meaning a successful petition could make it impossible for employers to fund already-negotiated raises for teachers, firefighters, and other public workers.

This biennial state budget set spending levels for all state agencies but included zero pay raises for the roughly 40,000 Kansas state employees, despite a market salary study showing workers falling further behind. The budget also directed conference committee negotiations on a pay plan but failed to guarantee any outcome, while containing provisions that weakened job security for university workers. A NAY vote supported sending the budget back for meaningful investment in the state workforce.

This amendment to the state budget would have directed $40.6 million to special education, drawing first from unspent federal ARPA funds already allocated to Kansas. State law requires 92% reimbursement of special education costs, but Kansas has funded only 70-75% for years — a shortfall that forces school districts to increase caseloads, cut support staff positions, and suppress wages for the thousands of teachers, paraprofessionals, and therapists who deliver these services. The amendment represented less than four-tenths of one percent of the state general fund budget.

SCR 1616 proposes amending the Kansas Constitution to cap annual increases in assessed property values at 3%, rolling the baseline back to 2022 levels. Despite being marketed as property tax relief, the cap does not limit actual tax bills — local governments retain full authority to raise mill levies to meet budget needs, simply shifting the burden onto new homeowners, new construction, and commercial property. The result is squeezed revenue for cities, counties, and school districts whose budgets fund the wages, benefits, and jobs of thousands of union-represented teachers, firefighters, road crews, and public safety workers. The cap also penalizes new construction by taxing it at full market value while capping existing properties, directly undermining housing affordability and construction trades employment — contradicting the Senate's own vote the same week to encourage new home building. The Senate adopted the resolution 30-10 on Emergency Final Action.

SB 375 imposes new legal burdens on proxy advisory firms — the companies that union pension funds and retirement plans hire to research and recommend how to vote their shares on corporate issues like executive pay, workplace safety, and governance. By requiring a narrow type of "written financial analysis" for any recommendation that goes against company management, the bill makes it harder and more expensive for these advisors to recommend votes on labor, environmental, and governance proposals that workers' retirement funds depend on. This is part of a national campaign to weaken the tools unions use to hold corporations accountable as shareholders.

This bill doubles the maximum time juveniles can be held in detention (from 45 to 90 days), increases penalties for young offenders, and requires the state to contract with private residential facilities for juvenile beds. The mandatory private contracting provision routes state dollars to private operators with no requirements for fair wages, adequate staffing levels, or worker protections — undermining public-sector corrections workers who provide these services today. It sets a troubling precedent for privatizing juvenile justice functions without any labor standards attached to the contracts.

This vote forced a single up-or-down decision on overriding all of the Governor's line-item vetoes on the state budget at once — denying senators the chance to deliberate on each provision individually. The overridden vetoes included eliminating 12-month continuous Medicaid eligibility for low-wage workers, mandating an AI-driven budget audit program with no collective bargaining protections for affected state employees, requiring elimination of all DEI positions across state government, and imposing across-the-board agency budget cuts that directly pressure state employee wages and staffing.

This bill requires legislative approval before any state agency can seek federal waivers to expand Medicaid eligibility or make changes to services for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. It creates a major barrier to federal funding that could raise wages for Kansas's roughly 10,000 direct support professionals — chronically underpaid workers who provide daily care to some of our most vulnerable neighbors. By adding political hurdles to routine federal waiver requests, this law makes it harder for the state to bring home federal dollars that support healthcare jobs and working families' access to care.

This bill requires legislative approval before any state agency can seek federal waivers to expand public assistance programs like Medicaid or make changes to services for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. It creates a new bureaucratic barrier that can block federal funding for healthcare coverage and delay rate increases for the roughly 10,000 direct support professionals who care for Kansans with disabilities — workers already among the lowest-paid in the state. By adding a legislative veto over routine program improvements, this law makes it harder to expand healthcare access for uninsured working families and harder to raise wages for direct care workers.

HB 2062 removes longstanding legal protections that shielded workers' 401(k)s, IRAs, and other retirement accounts from being seized to pay child support arrearages. The bill allows courts to order the total liquidation of a worker's retirement savings — with the worker absorbing early withdrawal penalties and taxes — when a judge determines the worker is "voluntarily underemployed," a term the bill never defines. That vague trigger could potentially reach workers who go on strike, take FMLA leave, or accept a union-negotiated buyout, putting hard-won retirement security at risk.

This bill removes longstanding legal protections for 401(k)s, IRAs, and other retirement accounts from child support claims, and allows courts to order full liquidation of those accounts — with workers paying early withdrawal penalties and taxes on top. The bill's vague "voluntary underemployment" trigger, which activates the retirement seizure power, is never defined and could potentially reach workers who go on strike, take FMLA leave, or accept a union-negotiated buyout. Workers who spent years building retirement security through collectively bargained benefits could see those accounts drained, losing far more in penalties and taxes than the support obligation satisfied.

SB 269 locks Kansas into an automatic system that ratchets down income tax rates whenever revenues exceed a formula-based threshold. While the bill includes some fiscal guardrails, every triggered rate cut permanently reduces the revenue available to fund public schools, state agencies, and KPERS retirement contributions that working families depend on. The bill also immediately raised effective tax rates on lower-income Kansans by collapsing three tax brackets into two, hitting workers earning under $30,000 the hardest.

SB 269 creates an automatic trigger that ratchets down Kansas income tax rates whenever state revenues exceed a baseline, putting the state on a path toward a flat tax. While framed as fiscally responsible, once rates drop they never go back up — meaning less money available over time for public schools, state agencies, KPERS retirement contributions, and the services working families depend on. Kansas lived through this story before during the Brownback-era tax experiment, which led to budget crises, funding cuts, and public-sector wage freezes.

SB 14 creates a "continuous budget" that keeps last year's spending levels in place if the legislature doesn't pass a new budget, eliminating the governor's ability to use a budget impasse to push for better pay, benefits, and funding for workers' programs. Even more concerning, it gives the Secretary of Administration power to automatically cut state funding for Medicaid, workforce programs, and social services whenever federal dollars are reduced — bypassing the legislature where working families have a voice. Labor opposed the veto override because this bill shifts budget power away from the democratic process and puts public sector jobs and critical services at risk of cuts by unelected administrators.

SB 14 establishes a continuous state budget, meaning if the legislature doesn't pass a new budget, last year's spending levels automatically roll forward — eliminating the governor's ability to use a budget impasse to push for state worker pay raises, KPERS pension contributions, and funding for worker-serving programs. The bill also gives the Secretary of Administration power to automatically cut state funding for Medicaid, workforce development, and social services whenever federal dollars are reduced, bypassing the legislative process where working families have a voice. Labor opposes this bill because it locks in the status quo of underfunded state services and removes a critical tool for negotiating better outcomes for Kansas workers.

SB 269 creates an automatic trigger that ratchets down Kansas income tax rates whenever revenue exceeds a certain threshold — with no mechanism to restore rates if budgets fall short. While framed as fiscally responsible, every automatic tax cut means less money available for public schools, state agencies, KPERS retirement contributions, and the services working families depend on. Kansas lived through this story before during the Brownback era, when structural revenue losses led to public sector wage freezes, layoffs, and underfunded schools.

This bill makes the previous year's state budget automatically continue if the legislature doesn't pass a new one, eliminating the governor's ability to use budget deadlines to push for state employee pay raises and full KPERS pension contributions. It also gives an unelected appointee — the Secretary of Administration — the power to automatically cut state funding for Medicaid, workforce programs, and social services whenever federal dollars are reduced, bypassing the legislature where working families have a voice. Labor opposes this bill because it shifts budget power away from the tools that have historically protected state workers and the programs Kansas families depend on.

HB 2086 improves the retirement dividend formula for every Kansas public employee hired since 2015 — including teachers, state workers, and local government employees. It lowers the investment return threshold from 6% to 5% and increases workers' share of excess returns from 75% to 80%, effectively more than doubling the annual dividend credit in typical years. This is a straightforward improvement to the deferred wages our members earn, and it passed the House 116-5 with broad bipartisan support.

This bill transfers the state employee health benefits program to the Insurance Department — a reasonable reorganization on its face. But buried in the fine print, it deletes injured workers' right to have their attorney notified when workers' comp payments are made electronically, repeals ten statutes governing employer contributions for state employees' children's health coverage, and hands permanent control of the state employee health care commission to the elected Commissioner of Insurance rather than a governor's appointee accountable to state workers. These hidden rollbacks were never debated as standalone bills and directly harm the roughly 40,000 state employees and their families who depend on these programs.

SB 14 would put the state budget on autopilot, automatically continuing last year's spending levels if the Legislature doesn't act. This eliminates the annual pressure on lawmakers to negotiate and fund public services, making it easier to freeze wages, staffing, and programs that working families depend on. By removing the urgency to pass a budget, it weakens the leverage public employee unions have during the appropriations process and hands sweeping reallocation power to unelected administrators.