Research: 2025 Responsible Kansas Budget

Originally published at Kansas Policy Institute. 

​Kansas, like most states, has a spending problem, not a revenue problem. The 2025 Responsible Kansas Budget offers several ways that the state can limit its spending to pave the way for tax reform and economic growth in the future.

In June 2023, Kansas ended FY 2023 with collected tax revenues at $10.2 billion – a 4.1% or $402 million increase over the collected tax revenues of FY 2022.  According to the Kansas Legislative Research Department, even if Kansas had enacted a flat tax bill during its 2023 legislative session, the state would end FY 2028 with $2.7 billion in its ending balance and $1.8 billion in the Budget Stabilization Fund, totaling $4.5 billion in reserves.

At the same time, spending has grown massively over the last decade. According to the FY 2025 Governor’s Budget Report, the approved FY 2024 General Fund budget of $9.918 billion is 13.6% more than the approved 2023 budget. In FY 2020, the State Fund appropriations equaled $12.6 billion, but has ballooned into and after the COVID-19 pandemic to be $19 billion in FY 2023 and a base of $18.4 billion for FY 2024.

​If Kansas’s annual appropriations had grown at the rate of population growth plus inflation since FY 2005, State Fund appropriations would be $6.4 billion lower in FY 2024 than the actual base appropriations. This equates to a $46.6 billion cumulative difference from FY 2005 to FY 2024. What this number represents is higher taxes on Kansans, slower economic growth, and fewer opportunities for people to flourish.