Today, Governor Laura Kelly signed 7 pieces of bipartisan legislation into law.
“Today, I signed seven bipartisan bills that will enhance consumer protections and protect Kansas families from mistreatment and extortion,” Governor Laura Kelly said. “This is the kind of success that can be achieved when we work together – not as Republicans or Democrats – but as Kansans. I want to thank my colleagues in the legislature, on both sides of the aisle, for their efforts.”
Extending the Kansas closed case task force, providing for staff assistance and renaming the task force the Alvin Sykes cold case DNA task force, extending the Kansas criminal justice reform commission, limiting the commission’s scope of study and adding a public defender, and authorizing the crime victims compensation board to waive application time restrictions for certain victims to receive compensation for mental health counseling and adding certain children to the definition of victim.
Increasing the criminal penalty for mistreatment of a dependent adult or elder person when the victim is a resident of an adult care home, adding definitions related to defendants who abscond from supervision in the criminal procedure code and for parole and clarifying that bond agents seeking discharge as a surety are required to return the person released on bond to the court in the county where the complaint subject to the bond was filed, requiring the department of corrections to develop guidance to be used by parole officers when responding to violations of parole and postrelease supervision and that incentivize compliant behavior, and authorizing court services officers and community corrections officers to provide a certification of identification to offenders for use to obtain a new driver’s license.
Enacting the first-time home buyer savings account act.
Senate Bill 39 changes Kansas department of agriculture division of animal health license, permit and registration renewal deadlines and allows the animal health commissioner to recover the actual cost of official calfhood vaccination tags.
Enacting the Kansas taxpayer protection act requiring the signature and tax identification number of paid tax return preparers on income tax returns and authorizing actions to enjoin paid tax return preparers from engaging in certain conduct, exempting compensation attributable as a result of identity fraud, extending the dates when corporate returns are required to be filed, providing conformity with the federal return due date for returns other than corporate returns, providing a temporary withholding option for certain teleworking employees, establishing the Eisenhower foundation contribution credit and the friends of cedar crest association contribution credit, extending the time period and expanding eligibility for the single city port authority credit, extending the time period for eligibility in the loan repayment program and income tax credit related to rural opportunity zones and defining rural opportunity zone on the basis of population.
Creating the crime of sexual extortion and requiring an offender to register under the Kansas offender registration act, prohibiting a court from requiring psychiatric or psychological examinations of an alleged victim of any crime, increasing criminal penalties for fleeing or attempting to elude a police officer when operating a stolen vehicle, committing certain driving violations or causing a collision involving another driver, defining proximate result for purposes of determining when a crime is committed partly within this state, removing the spousal exception from the crime of sexual battery and making fleeing or attempting to elude a police officer evidence of intent to commit theft of a vehicle.
Enacting the psychology interjurisdictional compact to provide for interjurisdictional authorization to practice telepsychology and temporary in-person, face-to-face psychology and enacting the physical therapy licensure compact and authorizing criminal history record checks in the physical therapy practice act.