Government

Kansas legislative committees are taking separate paths to solve differences over the state's 2014 budget.

The House Appropriations Committee met Monday to review spending adjustments required by bills that have been signed into law. They're also getting an update on state revenue estimates.

The Senate, whose budget committee met last Thursday, plans to have a separate catch-all spending bill on its calendar when it returns.

The House Appropriations Committee is resuming some work on the 2014 budget Monday.

The House committee is scheduled to tackle small funding issues related to bills that are already signed into law.

All Legislators will return from their month-long break on May 8.

Still, several committees have met to prepare for the rest of the session. The Senate Ways and Means Committee met on Thursday, and the House Appropriations Committee is set to work on the budget Monday and Tuesday.

Conservative Republican senators are pushing back at Gov. Sam Brownback's request that Kansas issue $202 million dollars more in bonds to help finance construction of a federal bio-security lab

Members of the Senate Ways and Means Committee heard the pitch Thursday from Landon Fulmer, the governor's chief of staff.

Fulmer says the bonding request represented the last money that Kansas would have to contribute to building the $1.15 billion dollar National Bio- and Agro-Defense Facility at Kansas State University.

Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt's office is warning legislators that some laws they passed this year could lead to litigation costing the state more than $1.2 million over the next two years.