Governor pushes for 2.5% increases, points to Legislature’s automatic 4% hike
By: Tim Carpenter
Kansas Reflector
TOPEKA — The Kansas Legislature’s new budget bill includes a 1% across-the-board salary increase for about 35,000 employees in the executive branch and at Kansas Board of Regents universities.
Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly recommended the Legislature authorize 2.5% raises for state workers, but Republican-led negotiators in the House and Senate agreed Tuesday to a bill featuring more modest increases. House budget chairman Troy Waymaster argued for targeted investment in the state’s most significantly underpaid workers based on a 2025 market study, while Senate budget chairman Rick Billinger countered with a 1% raise for these state employees.
“With the price of everything — inflation — I think it’s important to give a little to all of our employees rather than just try to get the market deal,” said Billinger, a Goodland Republican. “The way the economy is, I mean, gas went up again just a little bit and groceries are up.”
Waymaster, the Bunker Hill Republican leading the House Appropriations Committee, said he reluctantly endorsed the Senate’s preference. His said his focus for the past three years had been on elevating compensation to state employees with salaries more than 10% below market rates.
“It’s unfair and unjust that we’re not paying these employees where they should be,” he said. “I’m not in favor of across-the-board pay increases. That’s not how you try to incentivize your employees. If you’re going to give somebody who is over market an across-the-board increase, you’re only exacerbating the problem.”
Billinger said the Legislature ought to consider a pay plan next year for state workers that addressed market-based shortfalls and delivered merit-based salary adjustments.
In the budget presented to the Legislature in January, Kelly urged lawmakers to appropriate enough for 2.5% raises.
The Legislature subsequently awarded 10% increases to its professional staff at the Capitol. House and Senate members received an automatic 4% raise this year because of the annual indexing of their salary adjustments to growth in the average wage of Kansans. In 2024, the 165 members of the part-time Legislature were beneficiaries of a massive surge in their compensation. The base salary of a rank-and-file legislator has increased to nearly $45,000 per year, but inclusion of mileage and the per diem for expenses would bring the total closer to $58,000.
“They’ve already given themselves a 93% pay increase two years ago on top of a 4% increase this year, even as they work fewer legislative days,” Kelly said. “Kansas depends on the good work done by state employees year-round.”
Kelly said recipients of the 1% boost, pending final approval by the House and Senate, were the people responsible for clearing roads in winter storms, mitigating wildfires in the spring, keeping Kansas children safe, honoring promises to veterans and providing other essential services to Kansas.
The governor said it was disrespectful for the Legislature to wait until final days of the annual session to decide what was available for raises to state workers who deserved “better than table scraps.”
In March, the Legislature approved and the governor signed a bill authorizing pay adjustments for the Kansas Highway Patrol and legislative staff members.