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2 | Page February 1 4 I ssueFebruary 14 Weekly Legislative Update & One Big ThingWelcome to the 2025 Kansas Legislative Session. This is the first year of the biennium, so bills and resolutions from the 2024 Session do not carry over to the 2025 Session. Bill numbers do not carry over, meaning they start over at 1 (Senate) or 2001 (House). It also means that legislation that was %u201cdead%u201d last year is gone and must be reintroduced this year during the legislative session to be debated and considered.For a review of common legislative terms, legislative districts, committee assignments and other legislative tools, visit KAC%u2019s Advocacy Overview here.Summaries of all legislation passed during the 2024 session can be found at www.klrd.gov under the Publications and Research tab by searching the Summary of Legislation and Legislative Highlights. This includes legislation passed during the 2024 Special Session.What Happened This WeekWith turnaround now just days away, the pace of working bills is picking up. Next week will be a short week for committees, but potentially a longer week on the floor, so be on the lookout for more legislative activity next week as we approach turnaround day. The schedule was further compressed by a snow day on Wednesday this week, which caused most legislative activity to be cancelled. As a result, many committees lost a day of hearings, which could prove decisive when determining which bills move forward and which do not.SB 119, which would change the fee split between counties and the state for motor vehicle registration is an important bill for all counties. KAC, along with the County Treasurers Association, spoke in strong support of this bill. The committee seemed receptive to the concept. This bill will need to move quickly with turnaround approaching.As mentioned last week, SB 10, which originally would have made watercraft and other small items exempt from property tax, was amended in the Senate committee to include airplanes. This caused KAC to oppose the legislation based on this amendment. There are three countywide sales tax provisions moving through the legislature. HB 2004 (Seward), HB 2125 (Pawnee) and HB 2275 (Finney) all were heard this week. These three bills will likely eventually be bundled into one bill prior to final passage, likely on the Senate side once all three bills pass the House.Both SB 120 and HB 2160 deal with Whistleblower protections for local government employees. While KAC supports whistleblower protection, these bills seem to be an expansion of protected activity, which caused KAC to be neutral on these bills. KAC is working with the bill sponsor on some language that would make this bill much more similar to the state whistleblower act.HB 2174, which would deal with training attorneys in rural areas, was heard, as well as the companion bill, SB 214. Both of these bills could help encourage more lawyers to practice in rural