Kansas lawmakers will be paid nearly twice as much in 2025 after the Legislature failed to intervene on a plan to increase pay that it never directly voted on.
The Kansas House and Senate passed a bill in 2023 establishing a legislative compensation committee that recommended increasing legislator’s salaries to $43,000 a year. The current rate is $88.66 per day, which is about $8,200 a year. But with additional per diems and allowances, most made closer to $23,500 according to the Kansas Legislative Research Department.
Lawmaker salary has been stagnant since 2008, and proponents argued increasing the pay would attract and retain less wealthy and retired people to seek office.
The bill that established the committee on legislature pay also automatically implements its recommendations unless a resolution blocking it passed both chambers. Seven senators introduced a resolution , but a motion to pull it from the Senate Ways and Means Committee failed to secure the necessary 24 votes required to bring a bill to the floor. It failed with 21 voting to pull it, three voting against, 12 passing and four absences.