Kansas legislators have begun work on a bill that would create a special fund to cover the state’s share of disaster assistance.
Maj. Gen. Lee Tafanelli, the Kansas adjutant general, testified before the Senate Federal and State Affairs Committee about legislation that would move $12 million a year into the fund, which would be capped at $40 million.
The state coordinates disaster response and recovery with local and federal agencies. Federal funds reimburse 75 percent of the cost of disasters, local governments pay 15 percent, and the state provides 10 percent.
Typically, that costs Kansas about $22 million per year, said Tafanelli, a former legislator. But the storms that produced nearly 100 tornadoes across Kansas on April 14 caused an estimated $284 million in damage in Sedgwick County alone, he said.
Assessment crews will be inspecting damage across 14 affected counties in the coming weeks. It remains unclear how much of that damage is uninsured and would qualify for federal and state assistance.
Tafanelli suggested the Legislature transfer $22 million annually, instead of the $12 million in the bill, into the special fund each year to build it up more quickly.
“It would allow the state to have a stable funding source,” he said. “It would give us a reasonable amount of money in the bank.”
The committee is expected to reconvene briefly Friday to add $10 million more to the fund, for a total of $22 million, all coming from the state general fund. The full Senate is expected to debate the bill next week.
Senate Majority Leader Jay Emler, a Lindsborg Republican, said the bill was introduced in the House with a $22 million price tag, with $10 million coming from a fee collected on telecommunication bills. However, the House stripped that provision and reduced the price when it debated the bill.
Currently, the state appropriates varying amounts each year to the Kansas Adjutant General’s Department, which oversees the Division of Emergency Management.
Kansas is prone to natural disasters, frequently getting struck by tornadoes, such as in Andover in 1991, Greensburg in 2007 and Reading in 2011, as well as last summer’s Missouri River flooding. It was pounded by ice and heavy snow in 2007.
Tafanelli said the Greensburg tornado and southeast Kansas flooding later that summer did $700 million to $1 billion in damage not covered by insurance. Those bills have been spread out and are among the 14 disasters still being paid for.
Some senators worried that if the fund grew to $40 million that legislators may try to take the money during the budget process and use it for other purposes unless it was expressly forbidden.
“What politician in their right mind would sweep the fund that pays for 14 open disasters,” Emler responded.
Topics Mergers & Acquisitions Kansas Politics
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