Key Votes

This bill opts Kansas into a federal tax credit program that subsidizes private school scholarships, diverting students — and the public funding that follows them — away from public schools. Public K-12 is the most heavily unionized sector in Kansas, employing thousands of AFL-CIO members as teachers, paraprofessionals, bus drivers, and support staff whose jobs depend on enrollment-driven funding. The bill also permanently bars any state agency from setting worker protections or accountability standards stricter than the federal minimum for participating private schools.

SB 361 opts Kansas into a federal tax credit program that subsidizes private school scholarships, diverting students — and the per-pupil funding that follows them — away from public schools where thousands of union members work as teachers, paraprofessionals, bus drivers, and support staff. The bill also permanently bars any state agency from setting worker protections or accountability standards stronger than the federal minimum for participating private schools. Labor urged legislators to sustain the Governor's veto and protect public school funding and the workers who depend on it.

SB 361 opts Kansas into a federal tax credit program that subsidizes private school scholarships, diverting students and funding away from public schools where thousands of union members work as teachers, paraprofessionals, custodians, and food service workers. The bill also permanently bars any state agency from setting worker protections or accountability standards for participating private schools that go beyond the minimal federal floor. Less funding for public schools means fewer jobs, weaker bargaining power, and lower standards for education workers across Kansas.

HB 2468 doubles the tax credit cap for private school voucher scholarships from $10 million to $20 million and opts Kansas into a new federal tax credit, steering more public dollars toward private schools. This amendment would have required private schools receiving these taxpayer-funded scholarships to meet basic accountability standards. Labor supports the amendment because expanding vouchers without oversight drains funding from public schools where union members teach and work, weakening both the schools and the educators who serve Kansas kids.

This bill doubles the tax credit cap for donations to private school scholarship programs from $10 million to $20 million and opts Kansas into a new federal tax credit that lets wealthy individual donors stack additional subsidies on top. By diverting more public dollars to private schools that lack union protections and collective bargaining, this bill threatens funding, jobs, and bargaining power for public school employees — including teachers and support staff who are union members.

Rep. Boatman's amendment would have kept the Kansas private school scholarship tax credit cap at $10 million and removed the automatic escalator that allows the cap to grow to $30 million without further legislative action. Kansas public schools employ tens of thousands of union-represented teachers, paraprofessionals, custodians, and support staff whose wages and working conditions depend on adequate state funding — and the state already faces a $228 million special education funding shortfall. Every dollar diverted through expanded tax credits is revenue the State General Fund does not collect, increasing pressure on the public school budgets that fund union jobs. The amendment was rejected 35-82, clearing the way for the bill to double the cap and add the automatic escalator on final passage the following day.

This bill expands the Kansas Promise Scholarship — which helps working families afford career and technical education — to include a new category of institutions that drops the nonprofit requirement. While the funding increase is welcome, this change could divert millions in public workforce training dollars to for-profit career schools with track records of poor job placement and predatory recruitment targeting the same working-class families the program is designed to help. Labor opposes this bill because public investment in workforce development should flow to institutions with proven outcomes for workers, not to those whose business model depends on exploiting them.