TOPEKA — A bill forcing extensive changes at the Kansas State Board of Nursing passed both legislative chambers and will land on the governor’s desk amid concerns about its impact.
The House passed House Bill 2528 87-38 Thursday after the controversial bill went through two rounds of negotiations in a conference committee. The Senate passed it 32-8 earlier in the day.
The bill voids non-patient disciplinary actions going back to 2005 after health care professionals complained about nursing board practices that some legislators termed “draconian.” It also restructures board rules, including allowing nurses a 30-day grace period if they don’t renew their licenses on time and allowing for private cause of action if the board doesn’t make changes by September.
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The budget proposal currently moving through the Legislature allocates $500,000 to pay claims by nurses who argue they were financially harmed by the nursing board.
HB 2528 also ends the service of all current board members as of July 1, and requires the governor to appoint interim board members until the first day of the 2027 regular Legislative session. At that point, the governor would be required to appoint board members to serve while awaiting Senate confirmation.
Board of Nursing executive administrator Carol Moreland announced Wednesday she will retire April 10, and board member Brenda Sharpe tendered her resignation this week.
Complaints about the Board of Nursing revolved around disciplinary practices when nurses failed to renew their licenses on time or if they made an error filling in an online form, issues that didn’t affect patient care and shouldn’t have been punished to the extent they were, legislators said in hearings.
Rep. Troy Waymaster, R-Bunker Hill, said the board’s practice of letting a nurse who inadvertently lets their license lapse fall into the same category as sexual misconduct was “abhorrent.”
Rep. Susan Ruiz, a Shawnee Democrat, opposed the bill and told the House it wouldn’t address issues that concerned legislators.
“The real issue is all the statutes that are in place that guide the board as to how to practice, how to be a board, and that is not being touched,” she said. “I’ve said it, and I’m saying it again, that we need a task force, interim committee, whatever you want to call it, to really look at those statutes.”
Ruiz accused Republicans of hiding their true intent, which she said was to eliminate the board, an accusation Rep. Sandy Pickert, a Wichita Republican, denied.
“The purpose of this was not to do away with the State Board of Nursing,” she said. “We need regulation. The purpose of this is to void nurses from the database that have wrongly been put on for really minor things.”
In its regular board meeting Wednesday, nursing board employees expressed frustration with the situation and concern about losing their board members at the same time, some of whom do on-sight inspections for the board.
They worked through how to manage changes outlined in the bill, and whether employees would be likely to quit.
“Our state’s motto is ‘ad astra per aspera,’ which is ‘to the stars through difficulties,’ ” said Adrian Guerrero, director of operations. “That probably is more true now than it has ever been, at least for our agency. But I do feel that we will have a path forward. We are organizing ourselves to do the will of the powers that be. And I think that, you know, we’re going to be strong and we’ll get through.”
RaeAnn Byrd, licensing supervisor, raised concerns about board employees and instituting changes in the coming months.
“I have spoken to the staff, and I don’t blame the staff if they don’t want to stay,” she said, adding that right now, they have indicated they aren’t leaving.
She said that although the board staff is used to annual changes from the legislative session, it has never been to this extent.
“It has never been to where we have to implement the changes so quickly and the changes are so broad over our process, over our license system, our communication,” she said.
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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