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4 | Page January 2 4 I ssueCounties once again showed why county leaders are such an important part of serving the people of Kansas. If you have any follow up questions regarding the topics discussed during our training sessions, or during the legislative panel, please feel free to reach out to KAC for more information.Turning to legislation, SCR 1603 which had a hearing last week in the Senate Assessment and Taxation committee, was moved out of committee this week on a 6-3 vote. This legislation should look familiar, as it is the return of the constitutional amendment to place a cap on valuation increases for residential homes. That cap is now set at 3%, though the language of the resolution would allow the legislature to lower the cap below 3%. KAC is neutral on this amendment, as it is difficult to determine what the impact of this legislation could be for counties overall, or for individual counties.This constitutional amendment was amended during the committee process to allow that the valuation limits would remain in place whenever the property is transferred to another person or entity, though the legislature could provide for additional exceptions to these limits. This effectively means that if this amendment passes, the valuation limits would stay in place in perpetuity unless there are improvements or other changes to the subject property. Whether you are for or against this proposal your legislative delegation needs to know where your county stands and whether you support or oppose this legislation, as well as why. If you need more information on the details of this legislation, contact our office.SB 11, which would require the State 911 board to establish requirements for CPR training for 911 operators, was heard in Senate Utilities on Tuesday, January 21. The Senate committee may act on this bill at any time.In overarching news, the word is that the House intends to have their budget process complete by mid-February. As a reminder, the budget process has changed this year from year%u2019s past. Previously, the governor would introduce a budget and the legislature would work from that recommended budget. This year, the legislature is introducing a budget in addition to the governor%u2019s budget. As a result, the House Appropriations and Budget committees are conducting budget hearings in rapid succession to have a basis to work from as they develop the legislative budget. That is taking up a lot of time and focus for both legislators and staff. This is a continuing storyline that will be an undercurrent to everything else that happens. Savvy legislative watchers will be keeping an eye on this to see if that starts to bump other hearings and legislation to keep the budget process on track with the 90-calendar day session.For daily information on things happening in the Legislature, follow @KansasCounties and @JayHallKS on X (Formerly Twitter).Read the full January 24 Legislative Update, including What%u2019s Coming Next Week here.Watch Jay%u2019s January 24 One Big Thing here.