Each week during the 2025 Kansas legislative session, we will provide Johnson County lawmakers the opportunity to share their thoughts about what is happening in the state capitol.
The views expressed in each Capitol Update are solely those of the lawmaker. The topics are of the lawmakers’ choosing and are not fact-checked.
Below is a submission from Republican Rep. Angela Stiens, who represents Kansas House District 39, covering portions of Bonner Springs, Lake Quivira and Shawnee.
The Post has also extended invitations to submit Capitol Updates this week to Democratic Rep. Linda Featherston of Overland Park and Democratic Sen. Ethan Corson of Prairie Village.
The Kansas House Social Services Budget Committee has been pushing to help reduce the state’s waitlist for the Intellectual/Developmental Disabilities, or I/DD, waiver program.
Just last year the committee pushed for more funding for the program, adding 500 slots to the program, and made the number of those stuck on the waitlist be capped at 4,800.
Many in the I/DD community have been stuck on this waitlist for years — even decades — to access much-needed Medicaid-funded services.
This is my first year serving on the Social Services Budget and the committee is very committed to this issue.
It will add another 300+ slots this year, further reducing the cap on the waitlist from 4,300 to 4,000, helping those in our I/DD community to live their lives to the fullest.
Rep Troy Waymaster, a Republican from Bunker Hill, who also has a nephew on the waitlist reports that the request was cut down this year due to not having enough direct support workers.
Rep. Waymaster stated that he “would love nothing more than to put more money towards the waitlist and to get individuals off the waiting list, but I know the capacity is not there.”
Rep Waymaster is the chair of the House Appropriations Committee.
The I/DD waiver, which is part of the Home and Community-Based Services waivers, under the Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services, or KDADS, can help pay for adult daycare, overnight care, specialized medical care, specialized employment and overall gain a sense of control over their life.
With pushback regarding concerns that the current workforce in Kansas will not be able to match the demand in time, the Legislature is actively working to solve this issue with HB 2310.
This bill would amend the Kansas CARES Act, which would include creating more community college classes, offering state health coverage for non-government jobs and creating an online data system to assist those with any questions or concerns about the waitlist or the program.
The goal of this bill is to support professionals in making this a more appealing career with better benefits and career development to grow the occupation and reduce turnover of positions.
Additionally, adding slots creates additional spending, but the Legislature is committed to lowering the waitlist. However, for the state to simply reduce the cap on the waitlist does not cost the state a dime.
The Kansas Legislature along with KDADS, includes strong advocates like Rocky Nichols, the executive director of the Disability Rights Center of Kansas, who believes that the Kansas workforce is ready. He further backed up this claim by citing the fact that when the Legislature better funded the program and shrank the waitlist by 1,000 slots, quite notably the underserved waitlist shrank by 1,744 spots in one year. The backlog created by this waitlist is a major problem for Kansas’s health care with its citizens.
It’s not just the funding that shrinks the waitlist. People on the waitlist sometimes move and families know they need to apply well before they need help because of the wait for services. This has put Kansas at a disadvantage when it comes to our state’s health care performance in assisting those in the I/DD community to have a better quality of life.
Disability rights groups and the state may have different ideas on how to attack this issue, but the Legislature is working on proposals to get there by eliminating these slots and expanding the direct support personnel workforce. One thing for sure is that the Legislature and disability rights groups can agree: this is a priority.
