Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly warns Congress of ‘drastic and damaging’ cuts without more aid
Gov. Laura Kelly warned Congress Thursday that Kansas needs much more coronavirus financial aid to protect the state from “drastic and damaging” cuts.
The Democratic governor testified remotely before the U.S. House Financial Services Committee. In her first appearance before Congress as governor, Kelly repeated earlier calls for federal lawmakers to ramp up aid for state governments, which have experienced sharp reductions in tax collections during the pandemic.
The hearing came as the Senate prepared to vote on a Republican-backed plan to provide additional COVID-19 support. But the package doesn’t include direct relief checks for individuals like the CARES Act passed this spring or funds to backfill state budgets. Democrats are pushing for a more expansive bill.
Kansas officials have forecast sharp drops in revenue that could lead to tight budgets next year. The state ended the budget year in July with collections down nearly 6 percent from a year earlier, though some recent monthly figures have exceeded expectations.
“We will need significantly more support from our federal partners to protect our institutions from drastic and damaging cuts,” Kelly said.
Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, a Kansas City Democrat who sits on the Financial Services Committee, said every city and county across the country is being “financially slapped around” from falling revenue and rising spending, he said.
“I can say with absolute certainty that Kansas City, like many other cities, is experiencing unprecedented stress during this pandemic,” Cleaver said.
Still, responding to the pandemic isn’t as simple as “tightening our belt buckle,” Kelly said. The federal government must help, the governor said, arguing that cutting state and local government funding will only hamstring the state’s pandemic response and leave Kansas more vulnerable to future crises.
“We need the federal government to support states and support Kansans who are struggling,” Kelly said.
Kansas has already received $1.2 billion in aid and most of it has been distributed throughout the state. The funding is tightly controlled and must generally be applied to pandemic-related needs, not to shore up overall budgets.
Rep. Roger Marshall, a Republican representing the state’s vast 1st District who is also a candidate for Senate, said he would prefer to give governors more flexibility in spending the money that Congress has already approved.
“I don’t know that half of the money has reached Main Street yet, so if we have to give her more flexibility then so be it,” Marshall said of Kelly last week.
The Star’s Bryan Lowry contributed reporting
This story was originally published September 10, 2020 at 1:01 PM.