Kansas bill would let residents limit local spending. It has city officials worried
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- 10% of voters could block budgets exceeding inflation or 3%, whichever is lower.
- Cities warn petitions could force cuts to public safety and infrastructure, harm bonds.
- Gov. Laura Kelly has until Thursday to sign or veto the bill ahead of veto session.
Fewer than 3,000 voters in Leawood could reject the city’s budget under a bill that Kansas lawmakers sent Gov. Laura Kelly in March.
In Westwood Hills, a city of roughly 400 people, it would take 33 voters’ signatures on a protest petition to force local officials to revert to the previous year’s spending level.
Budgets that exceed the rate of inflation or 3% annual growth — whichever is lower — could be blocked by 10% of registered voters in any local taxing jurisdiction under the bill.
“This approach risks cuts to public safety, infrastructure maintenance, and long-term capital planning, which protect the health and safety of our residents and businesses,” Bonner Springs City Manager Amber Vogan wrote in her testimony opposing House Bill 2745.
“The city of Bonner Springs and Wyandotte County, along with many cities in the metro, are anticipating unprecedented growth over the next five years as the Chiefs and related developments come to our area,” Vogan added. “With this growth, cities must, at (a) minimum, have the ability to add capacity for emergency services and infrastructure.”
As amended by the Senate, the bill includes no exceptions that would allow local governments to tax construction and new growth without impacting their spending limit.
At a recent infrastructure planning meeting, Leawood Mayor Marc Elkins voiced concern that the cost of borrowing money could increase substantially if local governments’ budgets were subject to strict spending limits or vulnerable to protest petition challenges.
“It becomes difficult for cities to issue general obligation bonds that are attractive to the bond markets at all, because it’s the general obligation aspect of the bond and our ability to raise additional tax revenues that make it attractive to those who are investing in and purchasing the bonds,” Elkins said.
“The question to ask the Legislature is: How do you expect cities to provide, continue to provide good streets and infrastructure?”
Kansas protest petition bill’s fate
The legislation narrowly cleared the House 63-59 and the Senate 22-18. Because neither chamber came close to a veto-proof supermajority, Kelly’s support or opposition could be the deciding factor in whether the bill becomes law.
Kelly, a Democrat whose eight-year term as governor will expire in January, has until Thursday to make up her mind ahead of lawmakers’ veto session, which is scheduled to last two days.
To achieve the two-thirds supermajorities necessary to override a potential veto, GOP leaders would have to pick up 21 votes in the House and five in the Senate.
No House Democrats supported the protest petition bill last month. Sen. David Haley of Kansas City, Kansas, was one of two Democratic lawmakers who voted for the legislation. Haley said he favored creating a new mechanism for restricting local spending because voters have made it clear that ever-rising property taxes are unsustainable.
“A protest petition is certainly one opportunity to put a valve in place,” Haley told The Star in an interview. “I think it would demand a stronger accountability as to where the need is coming from for any future (spending) increases.”
If at least 10% of voters signed onto block a local budget under the legislation, officials tasked with adopting a new spending plan would be prohibited from budgeting more than the previous year — even to account for inflation.
“It’s not a spending problem on the part of the local (governments) as much as it is just the cost of everything in the world going up,” Haley said. “I’m sensitive to that, and I’m hoping we can find a happy medium when this bill that I voted for is implemented.”
Sen. Bill Clifford, a Garden City Republican, said he voted against the protest petition plan in part because it lends itself to the tyranny of the minority.
“What I see happening is a very activist, vocal minority will get this petition every single time on the school, on the community college, on the county, on the city — whether it’s good policy or not,” Clifford said when the bill was being debated.
Sen. Mike Thompson, a Shawnee Republican, said that public budget hearings and notices of intent to increase property tax collections have proven to be ineffectual at keeping spending down.
“I’ve been to these meetings where there are hundreds of people who show up and talk about the problems they’re having as a result of out-of-control property taxes. And I’ve seen commissions sit there and listen to them,” Thompson said.
“Each person gets a minute to talk, and it’s two o’clock in the morning and everybody’s finally done. They wait them out and then they vote up the property tax increase and they go home,” he said. “That’s not how it’s supposed to be.”
If HB 2745 becomes law, it will go into effect almost immediately, meaning its spending restrictions would apply to local government budgets for next year that have been under development for months.
The Star’s Taylor O’Connor contributed reporting.
This story was originally published April 8, 2026 at 8:47 AM.
