The 2026 legislative session is over, but that isn’t stopping Kansas Governor Laura Kelly from signing some bills and vetoing others.
The governor signed Senate Bill 82, which does three general things: expands tax credit access for business costs connected to child care, as well as third-party contributions expanding access to community child care ventures; creates new tax credits for selling higher-ethanol fuel blends; and starts an individual income credit when people buy lockable gun and ammunition storage items.
The governor also signed SB 430, which puts the psychoactive component of kratom on Schedule I of the Uniform Controlled Substances Act, meaning kratom is on the same legal level as drugs like heroin, LSD and marijuana.
On the other side, Governor Kelly vetoed House Bill 2043, which had set up a protest process if local property taxes were to go 3 percent or more above the prior year. The governor says the Legislature’s push to lower property taxes has “always been a false promise” because the state’s only property tax levy is 20 mills for public schools, and she says the measure passed this year was “sure to fail” and “untenable.” The governor had proposed a one-time, $250 reduction for vehicle taxes; a permanent deduction increase in the state mill levy from $75,000 to $150,000; and a $60 million state fund to help counties offset their property tax increases. Speaker of the House Dan Hawkins said HB 2043 was “a straightforward reform that empowered taxpayers by allowing them to push back,” and he says the governor’s rejection of the bill was all about politics.
