TOPEKA — A leaked federal budget and the president’s budget forced Kansas advocates for people with disabilities to consider potential funding losses that could dramatically affect their services.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services budget for fiscal year 2026 was leaked to the press in April. It contained significant cuts to wide-ranging services, from mental health to developmental disabilities assistance to substance use programs, all of which would affect the vulnerable people the Disability Rights Center of Kansas serves, the organization’s leader said.

“I think everyone is taking it extremely seriously,” said Rocky Nichols, executive director of the Disability Rights Center of Kansas. “The disability community is pretty concerned about these types of proposals.”

Nichols shared a list outlining budget details, from the leaked budget and the president’s budget bill, that include “deep cuts” for the protection and advocacy system. Nichols said the proposed cuts would have a “grim impact.”

“Everything in the leaked budget is coming to fruition,” he said, pointing to the U.S. Department of Education budget information released recently, which confirmed some of the expected budget cuts.

With budgets for two disability programs unknown, Nichols estimated that federal budgets for programs serving people with disabilities would be cut by more than 64%.

“The best case scenario is, given what we know about the president’s budget, if the two programs that are outstanding are level funded at last year’s amount, it would be a 64% cut to our programs,” Nichols said. “If those programs are zeroed out, it would be an 87% cut.”

That would be devastating for Kansans with disabilities, he said.

The state agency charged with supporting Kansans with disabilities said it’s too early to determine how the Washington policies might affect state work.

“At this time, it’s too early to comment on how these proposals may translate into actual policy changes or what the downstream effects on state programs might be,” said Cara Sloan-Ramos, Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services spokeswoman. “We are actively monitoring the situation and will be better positioned to assess the implications once more concrete details emerge.”

For Nichols, the proposed financial cuts would translate to significant service cuts.

“The developmental disability network is us, the Developmental Disability Council and the Kansas University Center on Disabilities,” Nichols said. “Collectively, the DD network serves 46,000 Kansans with intellectual and developmental disabilities, which includes diagnoses like autism, Down syndrome and Fragile X syndrome.”

Nichols said Congress set up the developmental disability network in the 1970s because people with disabilities were being taken advantage of and their rights were being trampled.

Proposed funding in the president’s bill would eliminate Nichols’ organization, the Disability Rights Center, where services include intensive disability rights advocacy services and the ability to respond to abuse, neglect and exploitation, Nichols said. The organization is designated as the protection and advocacy agency for Kansas, which gives it special powers to investigate abuse and neglect in the disability community.

Nichols shared a 2004 example of physical and sexual abuses in the Kaufman House in Newton. When other law enforcement couldn’t enter the home, the Disability Rights Center was able to do so, which was the catalyst for finding out about abuses and allowed them to help individuals with disabilities escape the situation, he said.

Malinda Barnett and Brian Ellefson, members of the disability community, both have spent their lives working to protect and advocate for people with disabilities. Barnett is executive director of the Statewide Independent Living Council of Kansas and Ellefson retired as director of an independent living program. He now volunteers for disability organizations.

The proposed cuts to disability programs are worrying, they said, but Barnett is even more worried about proposed Medicaid cuts included in the budget bill that passed the U.S. House.

More than 56,000 Kansans with disabilities are enrolled in Medicaid, according to KFF, which tracks enrollment rates nationwide.

“So many supports that are funded through Medicaid are essential to people with disabilities, and so that’s my biggest concern,” she said. “Medicaid waivered services were created to keep people out of institutions, and so if those are taken away, then there’s a strong possibility that people will have to go back to being institutionalized.”

While that is obviously not what anyone in the disability community wants, Barnett said it also doesn’t make sense financially.

“In the end, it does cost more money than Medicaid waiver services,” she said. “Nursing home services cost more money than home- and community-based services.”

Nichols agreed that proposed cuts would lead to more people being institutionalized, something the disability community has been consistently moving away from for decades.

“These programs that we’re talking about, developmental disabilities network on the I/DD side and then the protection and advocacy network across all disabilities, help people with disabilities navigate Medicaid, help them cut through red tape and navigate complex bureaucracies — that’s like going from bad to worse,” he said.

Medicaid cuts will kick people off of services and then they won’t have anywhere to turn to overcome the barriers they face, Nichols said.

Ellefson has spent his life helping people with disabilities become more independent with a goal of living on their own. Medicaid cuts would mean loss of support for individuals from waivers, and it would decrease quality of life for many people with disabilities, he said.

“The purpose of the waivers is so those individuals with disabilities that live independently can be more productive people in society, can find employment and can have more dignified quality of life,” he said. “With the cuts in Medicaid, they’re going to end up in institutions, which is what we’re trying to avoid.”

Lost funding

In a breakdown of proposed cuts in a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services budget, Protection and Advocacy for Developmental Disabilities funding dropped from $45 million in fiscal year 2025 to zero for 2026, said Rocky Nichols, executive director of the Disability Rights Center of Kansas. 

The Disability Rights Center is part of this program, as are the Kansas Council for Disability Rights and the Kansas University Center on Disabilities, he said.  

Nichols highlighted proposed budgets for other programs, shown here with the 2025 fiscal year budget amount followed by the proposed 2026 budget amount: 

• Funding for the Protection and Advocacy for Individuals with Mental Illness program, which serves people with significant mental illness, dropped from $40 million to $14.1 million.
• The Client Assistance Program serves people accessing programs funded under the Rehabilitation Act, like Vocational Rehabilitation, $13 million to $0. 
• The Protection and Advocacy for Voting Access, which helps people with disabilities register to vote and cast a ballot, $10 million to $0.
• Protection and Advocacy for Individual Rights serves people who do not have a developmental disability or significant mental illness, which is the majority of Americans with disabilities, Nichols said, including people with mobility impairments, hearing and vision loss and mental illness that is not considered significant. $20.15 million to $0.
• Protection and Advocacy for Traumatic Brain Injury and Protection and Advocacy for Assistive Technology, which serves people with disabilities who need access to assistive technology, were maintained at current funding in the proposed budget, $4.96 million and $5.27 million respectively.
• Budget information for two programs is still unknown — Protection and Advocacy for Beneficiaries of Social Security, which helps people who receive Social Security disability and who have barriers to employment, and Representative Payee, which is a program that conducts monitoring and review of representative payees who oversee Social Security benefits.

Kansas Reflector is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kansas Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sherman Smith for questions: info@kansasreflector.com. Follow Kansas Reflector on Facebook and Twitter.

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