
Legislative Update: Week Two
We are closing out the second week of session, and our team continues to remain optimistic that we’ll see positive movement on issues that matter most to us. As you might know, the Legislature is in session on Fridays, which is a departure from previous years. A five day legislative week really compresses the overall calendar, meaning deadlines for submitting bills in the house of origin and turnaround will happen sooner than in previous years. If the legislature maintains this pace, we are looking at a mid-April adjournment. Our mantra at Kansas Appleseed is typically, advocacy is a marathon not a sprint, but this year is definitely feeling like a sprint!
Here’s what we’ve been working on this week:
Improving the State’s Foster Care System
Earlier this week, Kerrie Lonard, acting child advocate for the State of Kansas, presented to the Senate Committee on Public Health and Welfare about the work of the Office of the Child Advocate. In addition to sharing the office’s 2024 Annual Report, the office offered recommendations on several aspects of the child welfare system. These include authorizing surprise inspections of group homes, altering the definition of “neglect” in relation to children so that a caregiver’s level of poverty wasn’t a determining factor in child-welfare assessments, changing the frequency of court hearings on child permanency from 12 months to nine months and authorizing the issuance of a best-practices handbook for the benefit of attorneys working on behalf of children and their families. These are all welcome improvements to the foster care system – and one is already gaining traction, as noted below.
The House Child Welfare and Foster Care Committee had two bills introduced by the Department of Children and Families supporting increased effectiveness and better outcomes for our foster children. Kansas Appleseed supports these bills as they seek to address long standing issues within the foster care system:
- HB 2075, requiring that a permanency hearing for a child in custody of the secretary be held within nine months from such child’s removal from the home. Currently, permanency hearings occur only once every 12 months.
- HB 2076, reducing the authorized amount of days that a child may be placed in a secure facility and eliminating the court’s option to extend such authorization. As it stands now, a child who breaks a “no run” order, but hasn’t committed any crimes, can be placed in a secure facility for 60 days with two extensions of 60 days each.
Protecting and Expanding Food Assistance Programs
This week, the House Committee on Welfare Reform received a presentation on “Select State Legislative Welfare Reforms 2013-2024.“ This history provides a detailed overview of the Legislature’s efforts to make it harder for Kansas families to thrive. This document is a good reminder that we must remain vigilant in our efforts to protect assistance programs. Even though the memo is long, we must remember that it would be much longer if it weren’t for the efforts of anti-hunger advocates from stopping even more harmful bills from advancing. We take great pride that for 2024, the memo notes, “No legislation related to public assistance benefits was enacted during the 2024 Legislative Session.”
There were no new bills introduced in the Welfare Reform Committee this week, but we expect to see bills on requiring custodial and noncustodial parents to cooperate with child-support enforcement programs for food assistance eligibility and disqualifying such parents from food assistance for being delinquent in support payments; and, prohibiting counties and cities from implementing universal income programs.
Reducing Hunger in Kansas
We are seeing tremendous momentum on our efforts to have the state fund reduced-price copays for 36,000 Kansas students. We – and our partners – have been meeting with legislators this week and there has been widespread interest in this proposal. We will be testifying to the House Committee on K-12 Education Budget on Wednesday afternoon, which is an important first step to ensuring that this program is funded in the next budget cycle. Your help is needed to keep the momentum going! Here’s how you can help:
- Sign this petition calling on Kansas legislators to take action quickly and ensure Kansas kids on reduced-price meals will no longer have to pay for their meals at school.
- Contact your state legislators and tell them to support this budget item. You can contact them through our online form.
This week has been an important reminder that the work we do in our communities and in our state matters. I am still hopeful that through our collective advocacy, our best days are ahead of us. As our great Kansas Constitution reminds us, “All political power is inherent in the people.”