Governor Laura Kelly has announced her annual budget, which is balanced and continues to fully fund Kansas K-12 public schools. The budget also invests in early childhood services, special education and addresses both short and long-term water needs.
The budget continues investments in early childhood care and education. Governor Kelly’s budget provides about $13.4 million to expand child care slots and build child care workforce capacity. It provides free school meals to qualifying children. It also fully funds Kansas public K-12 schools for the seventh year in a row. Also, it brings more than $1 billion in taxpayer dollars back to Kansas annually, that is currently sent to other states by expanding Medicaid to provide access to affordable health care for 150,000 more Kansans and cut health care costs for everyone else.
It also makes investments in higher education, prioritizes water infrastructure projects in small towns, provides funding for agriculture and natural resources, continues to repair Kansas foster care system, bolsters health care services and hospitals, provides support for disability and employment services, improves public safety, and makes investments in economic development and tourism.
