The Kansas Senate spent Tuesday amending SB 315—the FY2027 budget bill—25 times before breaking without a final passage vote. The session's two most consequential actions cut in opposite directions on Kansas schools: Sen. Beverly Gossage (R) struck $16 million in school-based mental health funding from the bill without a roll call vote, while a separate amendment adding financial penalties for student walkouts passed 21 Yes, 18 No, 1 Present on a clean partisan split.

Gossage's amendment deleted all nine pages of the Mental Health Intervention Team (MHIT) program from the base bill—eliminating $16 million in FY2027 grants that had funded school-district partnerships with licensed community mental health providers since 2018. Under the program, districts applied for grants covering school liaison salaries; partnering mental health centers received a 35% pass-through to place licensed therapists and case managers directly in schools, year-round. A 24/7 student crisis hotline and detailed outcome reporting to the legislature were also required. The program served both public school districts and accredited nonpublic schools.

The same session added a new financial weapon against school districts where student walkouts occur. Sen. Michael Murphy (R)'s amendment (which passed with every Democrat voting no) would penalize districts an amount equal to the superintendent's base contract salary for each day of a walkout, if the district failed to obtain written parental consent for absent students, failed to enforce attendance laws with discipline, or had staff "encourage, facilitate or enable" the walkout. Walkout days would not count as instructional days. The State Board of Education would adjudicate complaints. The provision's legal durability is uncertain: tying school district financial penalties to student conduct through an appropriations bill, with the Board of Education as judge, is novel statutory territory.

The floor session underscored a broader pattern: state employee pay went nowhere (Sen. Tim Shallenburger (R)'s $33 million classified and unclassified pay raise was defeated without a roll call), and a $5 million appropriation for the Dunbar Theatre in Wichita—brought by Sen. Oletha Faust-Goudeau (D-Wichita)—was ruled out of order on a PayGo challenge. Sen. Cindy Holscher (D)'s counter-amendment directing $8.5 million in recouped federal relief funds to special education failed 9 Yes, 31 No on a party-line vote. What did pass quietly: a $1 million I/DD mental health resource center (Sen. Chasi Blasi (R) ) and a $1 million I/DD employment transportation pilot for Sedgwick County (Sen. Joseph Claeys, (R) )—both funded in part by lapsing money from the existing state employee pay increase account.

SB 315 still needs a final passage vote before it can advance to the House, where the walkout penalty and the MHIT elimination will both face a new audience. Whether the House restores the school mental health program in conference is the question to watch.

A bill introduced in the Kansas House Tuesday would redefine "unborn child" as a person under state homicide and wrongful-death statutes…a change that would open the door to criminal prosecution and civil lawsuits when conduct causes the death of a fetus, and that is widely expected to trigger immediate constitutional challenge under Kansas Supreme Court precedent.

HB 2789 removes existing statutory exclusions that had shielded abortions and most pregnancy-related medical procedures from homicide liability, replacing them with a narrow exception for life-saving treatment—but only when the provider takes "reasonable steps" to preserve the fetus. Spontaneous miscarriage is also excluded. The bill applies to conduct on or after July 1, 2026.

Opponents (including medical organizations and civil liberties advocates) argue the bill would effectively criminalize abortion care and interfere with emergency obstetric decisions, particularly in complex cases where the narrow exception may not clearly apply. The Kansas Supreme Court ruled in 2019 that the state constitution protects the right to abortion as a fundamental right, and that precedent has shaped every significant reproductive-rights case before state courts since. HB 2789's exception structure would face that standard directly: a "reasonable steps to save the fetus" requirement imposed on physicians in life-threatening pregnancies is precisely the kind of provision Kansas courts have scrutinized closely.

No floor votes for this period.

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