TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas legislators have finished work on a $15.4 billion state budget for the fiscal year beginning in July that would limit tuition increases at state universities.

The Senate voted 23-11 on Sunday to approve a bill containing most of the spending blueprint for state government. The House passed it Wednesday, so the measure goes next to Gov. Sam Brownback.

The budget wouldn’t balance without more than $400 million in tax increases. Total spending would then decline by 0.4 percent, or $55 million, during the next fiscal year.

State spending on higher education would remain flat.

The budget would prevent increases in tuition at state universities that are more than 2 percentage points above inflation as measured by the consumer price index. The figure would have been 2.8 percent for 2014.

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JOHN HANNA, AP Political Writer
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — The Kansas Senate has approved a new plan for raising sales and cigarette taxes to close a projected budget shortfall.

The 21-17 vote Sunday represented the first time this year that the chamber has approved a plan for raising enough new revenues to balance the budget. The action came on the 108th day of an annual legislative session that is now the longest in state history.

The plan would raise $423 million during the fiscal year that begins July 1. The sales tax would increase to 6.55 percent from 6.15 percent and the cigarette tax would go up by 50 cents a pack to $1.29.

The measure also would raise $24 million during the next fiscal year by increasing taxes for business owners.

The plan goes next to the House.

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JOHN HANNA, AP Political Writer
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas legislators have drafted a new plan for raising taxes to close a budget shortfall that’s similar to one the Senate already has rejected.

The plan agreed to Sunday by three Senate and three House negotiators would raise $423 million during the fiscal year that begins July 1. That’s more than enough to balance the budget.

The plan would increase the state’s sales tax to 6.55 percent from 6.15 percent and boost the cigarette tax by 50 cents a pack to $1.29.

It would raise $24 million during the next fiscal year by raising taxes on business owners. More than 330,000 business owners and farmers don’t have to pay income taxes on their profits under a 2012 policy.

The Senate rejected a plan with those three elements Saturday.

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TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas legislators face writing a new plan for raising taxes to erase a projected budget shortfall.

Three Senate and three House negotiators were meeting Sunday. Their talks were scheduled after top Republican senators were thwarted Saturday in their efforts to separately pass several revenue proposals with broad GOP support.

Disagreements on tax issues among Republicans who control the Legislature made this year’s annual session the longest in state history. Sunday was the 108th day.

Legislators must raise taxes more than $400 million during the fiscal year that begins July 1 to erase the shortfall. Their key disputes are over raising business taxes and the state’s sales tax.

The gap arose after GOP lawmakers slashed personal income taxes in 2012 and 2013 at Brownback’s urging as an economic stimulus.