The president of the Kansas Senate says lawmakers should take a bigger role in crafting the budget.
The governor creates a Kansas budget proposal and delivers it to the Legislature at the start of the session. While the final budget bill is often significantly different, the governor gives legislators a starting point to work from.
Senate President Susan Wagle says lawmakers should do more and write their own budget plan from scratch.
“We will take our budget and we will compare it to the governor’s budget, no matter who the governor is," she says. "We’re going to be calling in agencies and we’re going to have extensive hearings. We will be much more engaged. We will be much more active."
The budget proposal was part of a series of plans released by Wagle in response to voter frustration. Democrats called the proposals mostly platitudes.