The Kansas Legislature's top Republican leaders are acknowledging that their private negotiations on tax issues have hit an impasse.
Senate President Susan Wagle of Wichita told fellow GOP senators Tuesday that her chamber and the House don't even agree on assumptions to use in projecting state revenues and spending.
The Kansas Senate has given first-round approval to a bill that would issue $200 million in additional state bonds to help pay for a federal research lab to be built in Manhattan.
Kansas lawmakers returned to the Statehouse on Wednesday, but reached the weekend having made little progress on the major issues that remain for this legislative session.
Gov. Sam Brownback's chief of staff says the latest cost estimates for a new, national biosecurity lab and commitments from federal officials about its funding are "pretty solid."
The Senate Ways and Means Committee approved a bill Wednesday that authorizes an additional $202 million in bonds for a national bio-defense lab, but only after adding limits designed to address concerns by conservative Republicans.
Kansas has authorized $105 million in bonds for the National Bio- and Agro-Defense Facility at Kansas State University. Gov. Brownback and his aides have noted that in 2009,l Kansas agreed to pick up part of the cost as it and multiple states competed for the project.