Conservation funding tied to gaming revenues in House committee plan

TOPEKA — The House Committee on Agriculture and Natural Resources recommended passage Friday of an extensively amended HB 2063 that would channel state gaming revenues into three new conservation funds and a Kansas outdoors fund.

Under the amended bill, between $50 million and $66 million in annual gaming revenues would be directed to a state conservation fund, with subsets flowing to working lands conservation, wildlife conservation and Kansas outdoors programs. Each fund would allow up to 2 percent of transferred money for administration. The provisions would expire July 1, 2031. The bill also amends existing law governing the state gaming revenues fund, which currently feeds the "attracting professional sports to Kansas" fund — a pot of money tied to the state's high-profile bid to lure the Kansas City Chiefs across the state line with a $3.3 billion stadium deal announced in late 2025.

The conservation plan echoes a 2024 proposal backed by a broad coalition including the Kansas Farm Bureau, the Kansas Wildlife Federation and The Nature Conservancy that called for dedicating roughly $50 million annually to conservation. Linking conservation dollars to gaming revenue is politically shrewd: it avoids new taxes while leveraging the same revenue stream that funded the Chiefs incentive package, which drew criticism from fiscal hawks and Democrats alike. The sunset clause signals lawmakers' caution about long-term commitments.

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