Kansas Senate moves to protect pensions, mental hospitals

(AP) — The Kansas Senate approved proposals aimed at preventing the state from shorting its contributions to public pensions or having private companies run its two mental hospitals, part of a larger plan it also advanced Thursday night to balance the next state budget.

Senators added the pension and hospital measures as amendments to a bill that would eliminate a projected deficit of nearly $200 million in the state's $16.1 billion spending blueprint for the fiscal year beginning July 1.

The House's bill has a provision that says the state can't spend any money on selling or turning over the operations of its mental hospitals in Larned and Osawatomie over to private companies unless the Legislature approves the idea first.

Senators also amended their budget bill to prevent Brownback from balancing the budget through June 2017 by reducing or delaying payments to the state's public pension system.

The bill plan initially would have allowed the governor to delay up to $100 million worth of contributions to the public pension system to bolster the budget.