March 16, 2021
Legislative Update
This is the 10th week of the Kansas legislative session. The House and Senate worked a short week last week, Wednesday through Friday. This week and the following week the committees in the House and the Senate will be busy conducting hearings as all bills need to be reported out by March 26.
On March 11, the House Appropriations Committee had a hearing on the proviso directing the universities to return tuition dollars for any day no class was held or for classes conducted virtually. President Myers along with the chancellor and presidents of the state universities, and the president and CEO of the Kansas Board of Regents testified before the committee. View the testimonies.
Last week the Senate Ways and Means Committee completed its work on the budget for FY 21, 22, 23 and sent the bill to the full Senate for consideration. The committee took action to partially restore the budget reduction to state universities. The reduction of 5.5% was reduced by 3%. The additions to the K-State budget lines are below:
- K-State — $3,521,142.
- Polytechnic — $235,973.
- ESARP-Coop — $647,513.
- ESARP-Ag — $1,056,468.
- K-State-VMC — $531,287.
Hearings of note this week, the Senate Federal and State Affairs Committee on Thursday will conduct a hearing on House Bill 2264. The bill permits student-athletes at postsecondary educational institutions to receive compensation for the use of their name, image, likeness rights or athletic reputation. K-State Athletics Director Gene Taylor is scheduled to testify in support of the bill.
The Kansas Legislature will provide virtual access to committee meetings and floor action throughout the 2021 legislative session. Links to access the meetings can be found at kslegislature.org/li/.
The Office of Government Relations will again provide weekly Legislative Review Sessions through the remainder of the session to discuss the previous week and upcoming hearings and meetings. The next Legislative Review Session will be at noon Friday, March 19, by Zoom. Zoom details are below. You will be required to sign in with your K-State eID and password to access the meeting.
Join Zoom meeting.
Meeting ID: 971 9078 3478
Passcode: 978743The information can also be obtained by contacting the Government Relations Office at 785-532-6227 or email kstategr@k-state.edu.
Throughout the Kansas legislative session, the Office of Government Relations maintains a list of legislation pertaining to higher education, K-State and state agency operations. To subscribe to the listserv email kstategr@k-state.edu.
If you have any questions regarding the Kansas Legislature, please contact Sue Peterson or Kristin Holt in the Office of Government Relations.