The final week in the general session of the legislature consisted of work in conference committees and on the House and Senate floor.

Conference committees are made up of the chair, vice chair and ranking minority member of both the House and Senate committees to which the bill is assigned. These six members are charged with working out any differences between the House and Senate versions. They provide a report (the conference committee report or CCR) detailing their agreement which each chamber must then pass to send that item to the Governor.

When the conference committee report (CCR) is brought up in the chamber, it is fully debated, however since it is an agreement between the House and Senate, it cannot be amended. Many conference committees had intense debates on how to make final policy advance.

The Insurance and Pension Committee had completed most work and we had been able to pass either House or Senate versions of most of our bills.

The House did concur with one remaining bill, HB 2564, as the Senate amended it. This was a simple bill that updated the Risk Based Capital instructions to the most current version. It did not amend the instructions, just changed the date to the current year.

The Senate had added another change that needed to be made to other insurance legislation where the numbering of a paragraph needed correction. This is an example of the many “easier” issues we address.

I appreciate our excellent and exceedingly competent legislative staff who make sure the law is written correctly.

Both the House and Senate had differences in our version of how to pay down the KPERS debt. We each had a bill directing $1 billion of the current revenue surplus to reduce the debt and future interest payments.

The House had $1 billion total. The Senate had the $1 billion plus an additional $253 million to address specific payments. They also spread the payments through the coming year. We met in the middle to pay a total of $1.125 billion and adjust the payment dates slightly.

This was Senate Bill 421, which the House passed on Thursday with a vote of 106 to 10. The Senate did not take the issue up in the remaining time and we will see if they choose to act on it when we return in late April.

Committees that had a great amount of work in conference included Appropriations, Tax, Judiciary and K-12 Budget. There are many important details on each of these topics. Some are yet to be considered in the upcoming session, some may be vetoed by the governor, and some will continue to become law.

Our budget work throughout the year was productive and the budget bill passed with relatively limited controversy Friday afternoon.

The K-12 budget was in a separate bill. While the amount of funding was agreed to following the direction in the Gannon lawsuit, the additional policy provisions created significant debate.

The Judiciary Committee worked on the largest number of bills or reports, including one to extend protections to those providing care as the COVID virus continues.

The Tax Committee incorporated several bills (we were told 29) into one which was passed late Friday night. With that many provisions, there is bound to be several each of us will like. It included the provision to exempt fencing supplies from sales tax following the Four County Fire. We all wish that could have been passed earlier. While I did vote for the bill and it passed with a wide margin, I am concerned that so many good individual ideas don’t always result in the best overall policy when added together.

Early Saturday morning on April 2, the legislature reached its first adjournment. We will return on April 25 for the final session. The budget committee returns on April 21 and 22 to review the budget and consider any implications from the consensus revenue estimate which follows the April 18 income tax filing deadline.

Thank you once more for your communication with me, especially those where you have concerns or disagree. Those can be the hardest for some to share. Please continue to stay in contact with

Please continue to stay in contact with me by e-mail at steven.johnson@house. ks.gov. The phone, (785) 296-7696, will not work as well as neither Coleen or I will be in the office regularly until the meetings in late April.

So, have a great month!