Kansas Health Institute | Information For Policy Makers. Health for Kansans.

The governor’s puzzle choices stay quite close to the starting budget.

Overall, he pushes spending up by only $22 million. The areas of K-12 education, health agencies and public safety each show small decreases. The biggest increase — $74 million — is in Medicaid, where the governor adds money to acknowledge that Medicaid costs are going up. But he offsets a bit of that increase with the beginning of his KanCare managed care program. Higher education also receives an increase — $44 million — primarily to enhance funding for technical education.

On the revenue side, the changes are equally small. The governor lowers revenue by $39 million from the Consensus Revenue Estimate mostly by recommending that the state no longer transfer money into the State General Fund from the Highway Fund. The governor has been promoting a new tax plan for Kansas that changes income tax rates and rules, but the effect of that plan on revenue does not figure into the way that the governor worked the budget puzzle.

→ View Gov. Brownback's results of our Kansas State Budget Puzzle using his proposed budget. (PDF)