Brief⁽¹⁾

S.B. 342, as amended, statutorily authorizes Regents institutions to pay moving expenses for personnel hired to fill unclassified positions from private funds.

Background

S.B. 342 was requested by the Board of Regents. Regents institutions have historically paid moving expenses of certain professional personnel recruited to the institution with private moneys provided by the institution's endowment association. A representative of the Board testified that recent Internal Revenue Service rulings require that such moving expenses be included on the employee's W-2 form to be a nontaxable reimbursement. The conferee reported that the Department of Administration is reluctant to include the reimbursement on the W-2 forms absent statutory authority for the institution to make such payments.

The Senate Ways and Means Committee amended the bill to clarify that such payments are compensation and not a gift. The Committee also changed the effective date of the bill from upon publication in the statute book to publication in the Kansas Register.

1. *Supplemental notes are prepared by the Legislative Research Department and do not express legislative intent. The supplemental note and fiscal note for this bill may be accessed on the Internet at http://www.ink.org/public/legislative/bill_search.html