Kansas
This fast-tracked disability tax credit bill is the first new Kansas law of 2024
Kansas politicians have enacted their first new law of 2024: a fast-tracked single-subject bill that reinstates an expired tax credit.
Gov. Laura Kelly signed Senate Bill 15 into law on Thursday after it passed the House 117-1 and 34-0. The legislation reinstates and makes changes to a tax credit designed to incentivize employment of Kansans with disabilities.
The tax credit had broad bipartisan support last session, too, but failed because of political logrolling by Republican legislators and the Democratic governor’s veto. That meant the tax credit expired at the end of 2023, prompting lawmakers to fast-track the legislation this session and make it retroactive to the start of 2024.
“Kansans with disabilities deserve a fair wage for the work they perform,” Kelly said in a statement. “I’m signing this bipartisan legislation to create more opportunities for people with disabilities, grow our workforce and ensure every Kansan can work with dignity and respect.”
The income tax credit is for goods and services purchased from qualified businesses that employ disabled workers and pay them at least as much as the minimum wage. The legislation also creates a new matching grant program to help transition sheltered workshop employers toward paying the minimum wage.
“By incentivizing businesses that purchase products from companies with integrated workforces, we are creating more jobs for Kansans with disabilities,” said Rep. Sean Tarwater, R-Stilwell, in a statement via the governor’s office. “This bill also helps those that make below minimum wage to get a pay increase. This spurs local economies across the state as the workforce grows and has additional money in their pockets.”
The minimum wage requirement was added last year following a contentious public hearing at which disability rights advocates took issue with the previous allowance for employers to pay less than $7.25 an hour.
Kansas Commission on Disability Concerns executive director Martha Gabehart said the new law is “a win-win for Kansans with disabilities and businesses.”
“The transition grants hold the opportunity to help providers switch from sheltered work to providing competitive integrated employment, enabling Kansas to join the growing list of states that have equalized the pay for people with disabilities by eliminating subminimum wage,” Gabehart said in a statement via the governor’s office.
Why lawmakers failed to get the tax credit renewed last year
Last session, the tax credit went through the normal legislative process in the House. The commerce committee, which Tarwater chairs, held a public hearing on House Bill 2275 before it was later passed by the full chamber 124-0.
But the Senate never took up the bill.
Instead, it came up in a conference committee, where top legislators on tax policy bundled dozens of separate bills into three packages.
The tax credit became part of the Senate Bill 8 bundle that was debated and voted on by the House on in the wee hours of the last day of regular session without time for legislators to read the legislation. It was passed by the Senate three weeks later.
Some of the pieces in the bundle were controversial, and Kelly vetoed it, saying the Legislature’s bundling “has made it impossible to sort out the bad from the good.” Lawmakers never attempted an override because they had already adjourned for the year, and they didn’t have veto-proof majorities anyway.
That meant the tax credit expired before legislators returned to Topeka for the 2024 session.
This session, instead of the Senate taking up HB 2275, legislators again turned to a conference committee. But this time, they didn’t bundle it with anything else. Instead, they gutted SB 15 to use as a shell for HB 2275, which was tweaked at the request of senators, who had not held a public hearing on the legislation.
Sen. Caryn Tyson, R-Parker, called it “a unique situation.”
“We know the urgency on this is because the program has sunset, and everybody understands that we are trying to get this done as quickly as possible,” Tyson said.
She initially said either the Senate tax or commerce committee could hold a hearing but acquiesced to negotiating in the conference committee.
“I don’t know why we would wait any longer,” Tarwater said.
Jason Alatidd is a Statehouse reporter for the Topeka Capital-Journal. He can be reached by email at jalatidd@gannett.com. Follow him on X @Jason_Alatidd.
TOPEKA, Kan. (WIBW) – Below is a look at the results from Tuesday night’s high school basketball sub-state semifinals in Northeast Kansas.
Editor’s Note: This story will be updated with what schools are hosting when that information becomes readily available.
WIBW Scoreboard
BOYS
5A East Boys: Tuesday’s sub-state semifinal results
- KC Washington 68, Highland Park 38
- Shawnee Heights 49, De Soto 37 (will play Leavenworth Friday)
5A West Boys: Tuesday’s sub-state semifinal results
- Topeka West 55, Hutchinson 32 (will play Bishop Carroll Friday)
- Emporia 61, Great Bend 41 (will play Maize South Friday)
- Seaman 73, Valley Center 51 (will play Hays Friday)
3A West Franklin Boys: Tuesday’s sub-state semifinal results
- Burlington 60, Osage City 35 (will play Baxter Springs Friday)
3A Sabetha Boys: Tuesday’s sub-state semifinal results
- Hiawatha 73, Oskaloosa 48 (will play Heritage Christian Friday)
- Silver Lake 58, Sabetha 39 (will play Perry-Lecompton Friday 7:30 p.m.)
GIRLS
6A West Girls: Tuesday’s sub-state semifinal results
- Washburn Rural 60, Wichita South 32 (will play Derby)
- Topeka High 69, Maize 45 (will play Liberal)
- Manhattan 67, Free State 21 (will play Wichita East)
4A East Girls: Tuesday’s sub-state semifinal results
- Rock Creek 71, Parsons 23 (will play Tonganoxie)
- Wamego 54, Labette County 33 (will play Bishop Miege)
- Hayden 2, Athison 0 (will play Baldwin)
2A Eskridge/Mission Valley Girls: Tuesday’s sub-state semifinal results
- Rossville 71, KC Christian 49 (will play Maur Hill-Mount Academy)
- Lyndon 61, Jeff. Co. North 31 (will play Valley Heights)
- Valley Heights 65, Doniphan West 41 (will play Lyndon)
Copyright 2026 WIBW. All rights reserved.
In early 2026, the Kansas state legislature passed SB 244, a law which prohibits transgender people from using public restrooms on government property that align with their gender identity and establishes a private right of action that allows anyone who suspects someone is transgender and in violation of the law to sue that person for “damages” totaling $1,000.
The law also invalidates state-issued driver’s licenses with updated gender markers that reflect the carrier’s gender identity. In February 2026, transgender people across the state received letters from the state Department of Revenue’s Division of Vehicles informing them that their driver’s licenses “will no longer be valid,” effective immediately. SB 244 also prohibits transgender Kansans – or those born in Kansas – from updating the gender marker on state-issued birth certificates and driver’s licenses in the future.
The same day SB 244 went into effect, the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Kansas, and Ballard Spahr LLP filed a lawsuit challenging SB 244 in the District Court of Douglas County on behalf of two transgender men who had their driver’s licenses invalidated under the law. The lawsuit charges that SB 244 violates the Kansas Constitution’s protections for personal autonomy, privacy, equality under the law, due process, and freedom of speech.
“The invalidation of state-issued IDs threatens to out transgender people against their will every time they apply for a job, rent an apartment, or interact with police,” said Harper Seldin, Senior Staff Attorney for the ACLU’s LGBTQ & HIV Rights Project. “Taken as a whole, SB 244 is a transparent attempt to deny transgender people autonomy over their own identities and push them out of public life altogether.”
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (KCTV) – A Kansas City man was sentenced in federal court for his role in a drug trafficking conspiracy and possession of an illegal firearm.
According to the United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri, 22-year-old Antoine R. Gillum was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison without parole.
His sentencing stems from a June 2024 incident in a metro gas station. KCPD investigators contacted Gillum inside and found that he had discarded a 9 mm pistol in an aisle between the merchandise. He also discarded a pill bottle containing multiple illegal substances: cocaine base, oxycodone/acetaminophen and oxycodone.
Officers searched the vehicle Gillum had arrived in and found approximately 32 grams of cocaine base.
On May 6, 2025, Gillum pleaded guilty to one count each of possession with intent to distribute cocaine and possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime.
This case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Jessica Jennings. It’s a part of ‘Operation Take Back America,’ a nationwide Department of Justice initiative to eliminate cartels and transnational criminal organizations.
No further information has been released.
Copyright 2026 KCTV. All rights reserved.
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