TOPEKA, Kan. — Kansas lawmakers on Friday approved another year of funding for most government agencies and services, after some lawmakers publicly protested at the last minute about a 93% pay increase for themselves next year.
The Republican-controlled Senate passed a bill 26-12 with about $19 billion in spending for the state’s 2025 budget year, which begins July 1. It covers most of the expenses, aside from aid to the state’s public schools, which are in dire straits. separate measure that has stalled.
The Senate action came hours after the GOP-controlled House of Representatives approved the bill, 78-44, so the measure applies alongside Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly. She will likely sign the bill, but the state constitution allows her to veto individual spending items, which she has done frequently in the past.
The bill would provide a 5% pay increase for all state government employees, plus larger increases for public safety workers and workers whose wages lag behind their private sector counterparts. But these increases fall far short of the pay increase for lawmakers that took effect in early 2025 under a law passed last year that did not require them to vote on the increase.
Critics of the pay increase managed to get the Senate to include a provision in its version of the next state budget that would delay the pay increase for at least another year. House and Senate negotiators left it out of Friday’s final version of the spending bill, prompting opponents to complain about the gap between the 93% raise for lawmakers and the 5% raise for most state workers .
“People don’t trust politicians,” said Sen. Rob Olson, a Kansas City-area Republican. “This is why.”
Lawmakers planned to adjourn early Saturday morning for spring break and return April 25 for a final five-day session.
For three years, Kansas has been flat on revenue, and the state would still have more than $3.7 billion in surplus funds at the end of June 2025, according to spending approved Friday.
Kelly and lawmakers want to cut taxes, but a compromise plan from her and Republican leaders failed Thursday. House and Senate negotiators on Friday evening laid out a new plan to cut income, sales and property taxes by more than $1.5 billion over three years, but Kelly’s chief of staff, Will Lawrence, said it is “much bigger than” what it considers affordable.
Lawmakers also failed to pass a bill with $6 billion in spending for the K-12 public school system. The state’s 286 counties will see an increase in aid between $240 million and $320 million, or between 4.9% and 6.5%. However, the disagreements over special education policy led the Senate to reject a bill 12-26 on Thursday, forcing lawmakers to draft a new version.
The bill funding other parts of the budget included provisions from Republican senators aimed at forcing Kelly to provide aid to Texas in its border security battle with the Biden administration and limiting diversity programs on college campuses.
The negotiators of the House of Representatives and the Senate decided not to postpone the wage increase.
A bipartisan commission of mostly former lawmakers concluded last year that lawmakers are underpaid and that low wages keep younger and less wealthy people and people of color out of the legislature. The law establishing the commission allowed the increase to take effect unless both chambers rejected it in early February, which was not the case.
The increase will be nearly $28,000 a year for rank-and-file lawmakers, increasing their total compensation from $30,000 to nearly $58,000, including daily expenses during the session. Legislative leaders will receive extra payments for their duties, and the speaker of the House of Representatives and the president of the Senate will earn more than $85,000 a year, up from $44,000.
During the House debate, Republican Rep. Chuck Smith of southeastern Kansas supported the pay increase by praising the work of the chairmen of the House Budget Committee and a committee on K-12 education spending.
“We should thank these people for what they do,” Smith said. “It’s incredible, the quality of people we have here.”
The tone was very different in the Senate. Facing a barrage of questions from Olson and Sen. Dennis Pyle, a Republican from northeastern Kansas, Bilinger acknowledged he doesn’t think the big pay increase is appropriate.
“Something is very wrong,” Pyle said. “It’s a sad day for Kansas.”
Pay for lawmakers varies widely by state, according to data from the National Conference of State Legislatures. New Hampshire’s salary is $100 a year — the same as in 1889 — while New Mexico pays $202 to cover lawmakers’ expenses while in session, but no salary.
Alaska lawmakers’ salaries rose 67% from $50,400 to $84,000 at the start of their annual session this year, and New Jersey lawmakers will see their pay rise in 2026, also 67%, from $49,000 to $82,000. New York lawmakers received a 29% pay increase in early 2023, making their salaries the highest in the country at $142,000 per year.