The Kansas House Committee on Appropriations heard an overview of an expedited budget process and was asked to use House Bill 2007 as the starting point for deliberations, committee staff said. Committee staff asked state agencies to prepare fiscal 2026 reduced-resource proposals that show a 7.5% decrease to state general fund (SGF) spending, with specific exclusions from that calculation.

Committee members heard the briefing from legislative fiscal staff during a committee meeting. Dylan Deer, assistant director for fiscal affairs, told the committee the legislature will begin budget hearings roughly three weeks earlier than in prior years and said the special legislative committee on budgets had already developed a recommendation that would form a starting point for members' work. "You're gonna start hearing budgets about 3 weeks sooner than you have heard them in the past," Deer said.

Why it matters: the request to prepare a 7.5% reduced-resource proposal affects how agencies present priorities and could influence program funding decisions for FY2026. Steven Wu, manager and fiscal analyst with Legislative Research, said the committee's published budget materials will be shorter than past budget volumes and will reflect the special legislative committee's recommendations rather than the governor's budget request.

Committee staff described the scope and limits of the 7.5% calculation. Jill Walters, first assistant reviser, told members the budget bill intended as the starting point is House Bill 2007: "the budget bill is number, House bill number 2007," she said. Staff emphasized the requested reduction applies only to the state general fund. Dylan Deer and other staff clarified that several categories are excluded from the 7.5% calculation: the portion of K‑12 funding that is distributed to school districts (aid to locals), caseload-driven entitlement spending, statutorily defined debt service, and enhancements that the interim committee had already removed from the starting-position budgets.

Deer said the aid-to-locals portion of the Department of Education — the distributions that go out to school districts under the school finance formula — is excluded from the 7.5% calculation and noted that exclusion covers roughly $5,000,000,000. He told members operational SGF spending inside the Department of Education would be within scope of the requested reductions: "the operational costs inside the Department of Education would be included as part of the 7 a half percent reduced resource proposal, but the portion of the Department of Education that goes out to the school districts ... is excluded," Deer said.

Staff also said the scope is limited to SGF and does not cover special revenue or highway funds. In response to a question from Representative Shannon Francis, staff said the reduction request is state general fund only and does not apply to the highway fund or other special revenue accounts.

Budget numbers offered by staff at the meeting provided scale for the exercise: the FY2026 state general fund request was described as roughly $12,000,000,000 and the all-funds request as roughly $24,000,000,000. Staff said they were completing a calculation to show the dollar amount represented by the 7.5% request and planned to distribute that figure to budget committee chairs before hearings begin.

Staff outlined timeline and materials. Steven Wu said the committee's budget summary will be a condensed document that replaces the governor's budget recommendation with the legislative special committee's position and that program-level, line-item detail will be available separately given the expedited schedule. Deer said staff planned to have budget summary documentation ready for members by Tuesday (the committee's next distribution day) and that subcommittee reports would retain a prepared paragraph for chairs to read.

House Bill 2007 was identified as the working baseline for deliberations; staff described it as the special-committee position rather than a final adopted budget. No formal votes or committee actions on HB 2007 or the 7.5% reduction were taken at the meeting.

Next steps: staff said they will distribute the specific statutory language and numeric calculations to agencies and to budget committee chairs and that members will begin hearings under the revised schedule. Staff also reminded members of an upcoming session to hear the governor's budget presentation; Adam Proffitt, identified at the meeting as director of budget and administration, was listed as the presenter for that session.