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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

SB 76 dictates the exact words every school employee — including custodians, bus drivers, and cafeteria workers — must use when addressing students, and creates a new parent-triggered complaint process to discipline workers who don't comply. This complaint pipeline bypasses union grievance procedures and collectively bargained due process protections, letting school boards investigate and punish employees with no right to representation, no evidentiary standard, and no appeal. Labor opposes this bill because the government should not be mandating workplace speech for public employees or creating discipline systems that go around the contracts workers fought to win.