The Kansas coaching staff is assembling a strong junior day group of visitors for Saturday. It starts with committed players like James Dunnigan Jr., Jaylen Mason and Hunter Higgins. Three of the top local players in the state will be there and will help recruit.

The junior day gives several players a chance to be around the staff again for those who have made several visits to KU.

Ottawa wide receiver Nate Sims has been on campus several times and attended two games at Arrowhead last season.

“I love to get on campus and talk with the coaches and build strong connections,” Sims said. “The more I visit the better I get to know the coaches and build a good relationship with them.”

Sims said he was looking forward to watching the basketball game against Kansas State and talk with the other recruits.

Kaden Snyder is in the same position as Sims. Both are local recruits who have been on multiple visits and games to Kansas. This will be Snyder’s seventh trip for an unofficial visit.

“I know the coaches pretty well I’ve been around a lot,” Snyder said. “They are great and they care a lot about the program and the players in it. I am not looking for anything specific just talk more and more.”

Snyder said he has been planning to attend the junior day along with his friend Ian Premer. He said the two talked about going to the event together. Premer, from Great Bend, is one of the top tight end prospects in the country and rated the top recruit in Kansas.

There are going to be players from outside the area as well. Owen Linder, an offensive lineman from Minnesota will be making a return visit to the area. He camped at KU last summer and attended a game last season.

“I love getting the chance to back to KU whenever I can,” Linder said. “Going on these visits now, I know the most important thing for me and my family is getting to know the staff and coaches better and these visits help with doing this.”

He said it gives him and his family a chance to ask questions and get to know the staff. It also helps build a relationship with Daryl Agpalsa, the Jayhawks offensive line coach.

“It’s been great getting to know Coach A,” Linder said. “He’s just a great guy that always makes me laugh. Also has given me great advice when I needed it since I’ve know him. It’s been a privilege to get to know him for sure.”

There is an impressive group of visitors expected to visit on Saturday. The confirmed list of players has reached into the double-digits. To see the latest updated list, visit our Junior Day Recruiting Thread.

Kansas Republicans are asking agencies to report on what they would cut if they had to reduce their budgets by 7.5% in the upcoming fiscal year.

The Kansas House Appropriations Committee reported that it would distribute the request to state agencies at its meeting on Wednesday. The request comes after the committee submitted its own budget for the first time in decades, rather than tweaking the budget provided by the governor.

“It’s an opportunity for any agency or any department to set their priorities and say, here are some things that, if we needed to make reductions, this is where we would like to see those reductions,” said Rep. Kristy Williams, R-Augusta, and the committee vice chair.

The request isn’t uncommon in budgeting processes, and Gov. Laura Kelly made the same ask from state agencies in 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic caused a bleak revenue forecast. Budget director Adam Proffitt said Thursday that when it has been done in the past, agencies are typically given more time to decide where they would make cuts than they would with Wednesday’s request.

“We send the guidance out in usually June, when budget instructions go out, and we give agencies about three months to work through the process to more accurately and strategically identify where the supports might come from,” Proffitt said. “The exercise itself is not a bad exercise. It just needs to be done appropriately and strategically.”

Profitt said when reducing a budget, you want to use a scalpel and not a sledgehammer because some government programs leverage federal dollars that may be jeopardized if cut too deep.

“You want to make sure that you’re maybe not touching headcount or critical programs. It just takes a lot of time to work through these,” he said.

Not about new tax cuts

Kansas Republicans said the 7.5% isn’t necessarily to make space for tax cuts this session, but rather from a sense the government is wasting money after forming its own budgeting process.

“We’ve been able to see some areas where we really have a lot of work to do. And we also think there’s areas where maybe money is not being spent appropriately,” House Speaker Dan Hawkins, R-Wichita, told reporters.

Senate President Ty Masterson, R-Andover, added that it’s important to cut after years of COVID-era stimulus starts to phase out of the state’s budget.

“It’s more about avoiding the cliff. You’re seeing all that massive amount of stimulus money that was in our system start to fade away,” Masterson said. “We ballooned to the cost of the administrative part of our government incredibly high. I mean, just under Laura, I think it’s up 60% on the executive side.”

What’s not facing a 7.5% cut?

There are some exceptions to the reduced resource proposal. The Legislature is only asking for the projection from agencies that are paid for by the State General Fund.

Dylan Dear, a fiscal analyst with the Kansas Legislative Research Department, said the State General Fund accounts for about half of the state’s all-fund budget. In fiscal year 2026, the request is $12 billion to the state general fund and a $24 billion all-fund budget.

That means certain state agencies that fund themselves through fees like the state’s highway fund will go untouched. There is also an exception for the state’s per-pupil funding it provides to school districts.

The 7.5% reduction doesn’t factor in any additional asks any agency might have for the year, which the Legislature can elect to reject or only grant a portion of. It also exempts debt service from the reduction because it’s a contractually required expenditure that can’t be reduced.