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Kansas

Kansas, like all states, has a unique early childhood policy landscape that is shaped by economics, demographics, political history, coalitions, and other factors that create a state-specific environment for policy advocacy.

State early childhood policy progress is dependent both on the state’s environment and the numerous efforts—by the organizations listed on this page, other organizations, parents, policymakers, practitioners, and more—who work both independently and collaboratively to achieve wins for young children.

2025 State Early Childhood Policy Environment and Progress

Early Childhood Landscape:

Research shows that family economic security is foundational to children’s overall wellbeing. Research also shows that widespread disparities in opportunity (especially by race) drive wide disparities in outcomes. States with policies that offer strong support to young children and their families are more likely to see 1) declining numbers of children in low-income households and 2) low racial disparity among those children.

Young Children in Low-Income Households: Declining

Approximately 37 percent (117,000) of the state’s children 0-8 live in households below 200 percent FPL (2022). This number represents a decrease from 42 percent (149,000) in 2017.¹

Racial Disparity Among Young Children Living in Low-Income Households: High

Black, Hispanic/Latino, and/or Native children aged 0-8 are significantly more likely to be living in households below 200 percent FPL than are Asian and non-Hispanic White children.²

(NOTE: Selecting for age 0-8, state, and race can yield small cell sizes that can make percentages less accurate. Bars marked with S indicate data with extremely small cell sizes, which is not displayed. Bars marked with C should be interpreted with caution. Though the cell sizes are larger, they still fall below a threshold of reliability.)

Advocacy Landscape:

State General Fund Appropriations: Decreasing

Kansas’ governor signed the state’s budget bill for fiscal 2026 in April of 2025. According to the conference committee report, the fiscal 2026 all funds budget totals $25.6 billion, a 5.4 percent decrease from fiscal 2025. General fund expenditures for fiscal 2025 total $10.64 billion, a 1.9 percent decrease from fiscal 2025. General fund revenues for fiscal 2026 are projected to be $9.8 billion, a 1.2 percent increase from the fiscal 2025 estimate. The enacted budget for fiscal 2026 projects the ending balance in the State General Fund to be $1.3 billion, or 12.6 percent of total expenditures. This is separate from the $1.7 billion that is projected to be in the Budget Stabilization Fund by the end of fiscal 2026.³

Key Revenue Sources After Federal Transfers:⁴

- - Charges ($2,685 per capita)
  - General Sales Taxes ($1,858 per capita)

Charges are public payments connected with a specific government service, such as tuition paid to a state university, payments to a public hospital, or highway tolls.

State Budget Rules:⁴

Kansas uses an annual budget. The legislature must pass a balanced budget, but it can carry a deficit over into the following year. There are no additional tax and expenditure limits. There are, however, limits on total authorized debt and debt service incurred by the state.

Permanent State Funding Stream Dedicated to Early Childhood: Yes

In 1999, the Kansas Legislature created the Kansas Endowment for Youth (KEY) Fund and the Children’s Initiatives Fund and used the payments Kansas receives from the Master Tobacco Settlement to fund it. Kansas has maintained that system without substantial alteration since then. Money flows from the tobacco settlement into the KEY Fund, then into the CIF, and then is distributed to early childhood programs. The CIF is administered by the Kansas Children’s Cabinet and Trust Fund.⁵

Political Alignment: Divided

During the 2025 session, the state’s Senate and House were both Republican controlled. The state’s Governor was a Democrat.⁶

Types of Common Ballot Measures Available:One

- Legislature-initiated constitutional amendment – a proposed constitutional amendment that appears on Kansas’ ballot as a ballot measure because the Kansas State Legislature voted to put it before the voters. If two-thirds of the members of each chamber of the Kansas State Legislature approve a proposed constitutional amendment to the Kansas Constitution, the Kansas Secretary of State publishes notice of it. The proposition, or a suitable ballot title and summary, is then placed on the statewide ballot in the next general election. A simple majority vote is required to approve the amendment.⁷

Early Childhood Policy Advocacy Organizations Include:

Early Childhood Policy Advocacy Multi-State Initiatives Include:⁸

2025 Policy Progress:

Highlights from the state’s early childhood policy advocacy community include:⁹

Because of the work of early childhood policy advocates in the state, Summer EBT was available for over 250,000 low-income Kansas children in the summer of 2025. Summer EBT was at risk of being cut from the state budget due to a new legislative budget process in which the Legislature ignored the governor’s budget, which included Summer EBT funding, and instead introduced their own bill that eliminated all enhancements and supplemental funding, in which Summer EBT was categorized. Alliance grantee Kansas Action for Children led the effort to save Summer EBT and successfully worked with legislative, budget committee, and budget subcommittee leadership to add back in $3 million in state general funds for Summer EBT to be included in the FY 2025 and FY 2026 budgets. The state’s small investment in Summer EBT (administrative matching) could draw down over $30 million in food benefits for Kansas kids, lowering their risk of being food insecure during the summer.

Advocates also won the permanent passage of a fix to newborn screening in SB 126 (originally HB 2397 and HB 2399), an issue previously temporarily fixed through budget provisos for several years. The previous cap was $2.5 million per year, and SB 126 raised the expenditure cap for the program to $5.0 million per year.

A new Office of Early Childhood was established, which advocates originally supported—working with both the Governor’s office and a bipartisan group of lawmakers. However, two significant changes were made as part of the larger bill that weakened vaccine requirements for child care and loosened the required thresholds for child care licensure. While advocates support Kansas working toward a more efficient governance system for early childhood and child care, these negative elements of HB 2045 led many of them—including Kansas Action for Children— to rescind support for the legislation.

Ongoing Grantee Areas of Advocacy:

Our lead ally in Kansas, Kansas Action for Children (KAC), shapes health, education and economic policy on behalf of all children in the state. The organization’s advocacy strategy includes research and analysis, communications and outreach, and public policy advancement. KAC prioritizes opportunities that contribute to mitigating, preventing, or reducing childhood poverty for children from birth through age eight.

They are working to advance early childhood policies in several areas that align with the Alliance’s birth-through-eight policy framework:

Early Care and Education

Preschool and Pre-K

K-3rd Grade

Child Care

Child Care Workforce

Child and
Maternal Health

Infant & Child Health

Maternal Health

Early Intervention (Age 0-3)

Family
Supports

Family Economic Security

Home Visiting

Early Childhood Infrastructure

Financing

Governance

Click here for more information on advocates’ policy agenda.

RECENT ADVOCACY SNAPSHOT:

Alliance for Early Success Early Childhood State Policy Advocacy

Numerous States Are Pursuing Strategies for Creating Streamlined, Cohesive ECE Systems

April 23, 2025

In recent years, a growing number of states have moved towards unified ECE governance to help administer the variety of programs states are responsible for, including child care subsidies, child care licensing, state-funded pre-K, IDEA Part B and Part C, child care quality improvement systems, and Head Start state collaboration offices. While these states pursue consolidation to add efficiency, others pursue are trying alternate strategies to reach the same goals.

NOTES:

¹Kids Count Data Center, Annie E. Casey Foundation, Children Ages 0 to 8 Below 200 Percent Poverty, January, 2024.

²National Center for Children in Poverty, Children Ages 0 through 8 Below 200 Percent Poverty, October 2024, NCCP analysis of ACS 5-Year Estimates – Public Use Microdata Sample 2018-2022.

³National Association of State Budget Officers, Proposed and Enacted Budgets, FY 2026.

⁴Urban Institute, State Fiscal Briefs, April 2025.

⁵Alliance for Early Success, State Examples of Dedicated Funding Streams, 2025

⁶National Conference of State Legislatures, 2025 State & Legislative Partisan Composition, January 31, 2025.

⁷Ballotpedia, Ballot Measures by State, Kids Count Data Center, 2025.

⁸Alliance for Early Success, Multi-State Initiatives for Early Childhood Policy Advocacy, July, 2024.

⁹Alliance for Early Success, State-Wide Advocacy Highlights Survey, April-October, 2025.