Kansas approves using $50M in federal funds to increase nurses’ pay

Kansas hospitals will receive $50 million of federal relief funds that will go to nurses, The Associated Press reported.

The plan, which was approved by a state task force Friday, will require Kansas hospitals to report on how many nurses they lose each month and why in exchange for the funds, according to the AP.

Senate President Ty Masterson (R), who serves on the task force, proposed the addendum mandating hospitals to report on nurses they lose, the AP noted. Masterson also criticized President Biden’s new vaccine requirements for workers, calling them “dictatorial edicts.” 

“We’ve had frontline workers — I mean, you can call them heroes — on the front lines for the last year and a half,” Masterson told the AP. 

Masterson earlier this week proposed to make hospitals enforcing vaccine requirements ineligible for retention incentives, which failed to pass the Kansas Senate by a 5-2 vote, the AP reported.

Kansas Republicans are promising a fight against Biden’s vaccine mandates, including state Attorney General Derek Schmidt (R) who suggested that he’s likely to join other GOP state officials in challenging the requirements, according to the AP. Sen. Roger Marshall (R) tweeted that the orders are “a terrifying glimpse of the new Marxist Dem Party.”

.@POTUS’ vaccination decree is an all-out assault on private business, our civil liberties, and our entire constitutional system of limited government. This will likely get struck down in the courts – but is a terrifying glimpse of the new Marxist Dem Party.

— Dr. Roger Marshall (@RogerMarshallMD) September 9, 2021

Kansas trails behind the U.S. as a whole in vaccinations as of Friday, with 49.3 percent of its residents fully vaccinated as opposed to 53.6 percent of the population nationwide, according to the AP.