House Status:
Senate Status:
Senate Status:
Minutes for HB2397 - Committee on Health and Human Services
Short Title
Increasing state financial assistance for local health departments under certain circumstances.
Minutes Content for Wed, Mar 5, 2025
Carly Choi, Revisor of Statutes, provided an overview of HB2397.
Ms. Choi responded to questions from the committee.
Christi Cain, Director, Local Public Health Program, Kansas Department of Health and Environment, provided testimony in support of HB2397 (Attachment 19). The purpose of the bill is to adjust the statutory formula which has not been modified since FY1992. The minimum in statute is $7,000 per local health department. Currently 51 of the 105 counties receive the minimum allowed in statute. Another 7 counties receive just over the minimum based on the population-based formula. These are all rural or frontier and all have shortages of health professional, leaving the LHDs to cover the gaps. There have been successful provisos increasing funding for each LHD to $12,000 annually. The bill increases the minimum funding amount for LHDs from $7,000 to $12,000. The bill has no direct fiscal impact, it simply restructures how the existing funding is awarded. Ms. Cain provided the committee with the SFY2025 and SFY2026 summaries of county population and general health award figure (Attachment 20) (Attachment 21).
Ms. Cain responded to questions from the committee.
Randy Bowman, Executive Director, Kansas Association of Local Health Departments, provided testimony in support of HB2397 (Attachment 22). HB2397 proposes to change the statute to the higher $12,000 amount instead of relying upon proviso language to be included in the budget bill each year.
The following provided written only proponent testimony:
Heather Braum, Senior Policy Advisor, Kansas Action for Children (Attachment 23)
Denise James, Administrator, Grant County Health Department (Attachment 24)
Shalei Shea, Director, Health Officer, McPherson County Health Department (Attachment 25)
Rebecca Johnson, Administrator/SEK Local Health Officer, SEK Multi-County Health Department (Attachment 26)
Dawn Jones, Administrator, Barber County Health Department (Attachment 27)
The hearing was closed.
