Overtime Looms For Kansas Legislature

Kansas legislators must wrap up their business for the year within a week to avoid having their annual 90-day session go into overtime.

Lawmakers were returning Monday to the Statehouse without having drafted a plan for raising taxes to close a budget shortfall and with a full plate of other issues.

It was the 85th day of their annual session. Following tradition, legislative leaders schedule 90-day sessions each year, though the state constitution doesn’t limit the length in odd-numbered years.

The 90th day would be Saturday.

Legislators have remained in session more than 90 days in 29 of the past 40 years. The longest session was in 2002, at 107 days.

Last year’s session was the shortest since 1974, at only 79 days.