Capitol Comments Articles
Committee Work on Health and Workforce Bills

(Feb. 19, 2024) - KansasCapitol The House Commerce, Labor and Economic Development committee has recommended House Bill 2570 favorably for passage.  The bill defines the benefit year, temporary unemployment and other terms in the employment security law, requiring electronic filling for certain employers, establishing qualifications for employment security board of review candidates, extending the deadline for new accounts following business acquisitions, making certain changes to the employer rate schedules, enabling employers to report claimant work search issues, confirming legislative coordinating council oversight for the new unemployment insurance information technology system implementation, authorizing the secretary to grant temporary unemployment, requiring the secretary to annually publish certain data and abolishing the employment security interest assessment fund.

The committee today held hearings on the following bills:

House Bill 2790, transferring registration requirements and related compliance oversight and enforcement authority for professional employer organizations from the commissioner of insurance to the secretary of labor, granting the secretary responsibility over the professional employer organization fee fund and ensuring that welfare benefit plans offered by professional employer organizations to employees and covered employees are treated as a single employer welfare benefit plan for the purposes of state law.

Proponents:

  • Bill Maness, Syndeo
  • Erica Brune, National Association of Professional Employer Organizations
  • Erik Turek, Kansas Insurance Department.

House Bill 2664, providing appropriations for and establishing a grant program for home-based childcare.

Proponents:

  • Spencer Duncan, The League of Kansas Municipalities
  • Chris Bennett & Colton Gibson, Wonderschool

Opponents:

  • Tanya Koehn, ChildCare Aware of Kansas

House Bill 2745, providing that military spouses of active military service members shall be exempted from all occupations licensing, registration and certification fees.

Proponents: 

  • Chairman Ryan Baty, Sedgwick County Board of Commissioners
  • Jason Watkins, Wichita Regional Chamber
  • Tamara Ray, Home Base Wichita
  • Col. John Buckley, Greater Wichita Area Advocacy Board
  • Jonathan McRoy, Kansas African American Affairs Commission
  • Eric Stafford, Kansas Chamber.

Neutral: 

  • Larry Karns, Kansas State Board of Technical Professions
  • Alexandra Blasi, Kansas Board of Pharmacy 

In addition, today the House Education Committee met to take final action on House Bill 2645, amending the nursing service scholarship program to remove limits on the amount of awards and number of scholarships, modify the interest rate terms for repayment obligations and abolish the nursing service scholarship review committee.  The committee amended the legislation to allow sponsorships and give a higher amount to recipients sponsored and working in rural opportunity zones. The committee recommended the bill favorably as amended.

The committee also took final action on House Bill 2644, establishing uniform interest rate provisions for service scholarships administered by the Kansas board of regents that have repayment obligations as a part of the terms and conditions of such scholarship and authorizing the Kansas board of regents to recover the costs of collecting such repayment obligations and charge fees to cover the costs of administering such scholarship programs.

Meanwhile, today the House Health and Human Services Committee took action to recommend the following bills:

  • House Bill 2777, prohibiting an employee of the office of the state fire marshal from wearing or operating a body camera during an on-site inspection at patient care facility. The committee adopted language to also include juvenile centers and other patient care settings. The committee recommended the bill favorably as amended.
  • House Bill 2784, transferring authority for certification of continuing care retirement communities from the Kansas insurance department to the Kansas department for aging and disability services. The committee recommended taking out any changes to the bed taxes, added references to the judicial review act, and recommended the bill favorably as amended.
  • House Bill 2749, requiring medical care facilities and providers to report the reasons for each abortion performed at such facility. The committee recommended the changing language to refer to patient, striking certain sections of the bill to ensure there is no survey, and they recommended the bill favorably for passage.

KHA will continue to keep you updated on legislation as committees complete work tomorrow and the House and Senate spend the later part of the week working through bills in their respective chambers ahead of the Friday turnaround deadline, which will require non-exempt bills to be out of their committees of origin.