State. Rep. Kyle Hoffman waded into a cat fight by attempting to thwart the will of the House Agriculture Committee and the full Senate and save regulatory changes for the pet animal industry in Kansas sought by the administration of Gov. Sam Brownback.

The Kansas Department of Agriculture has unsuccessfully sought for at least five years to raise fees on animal breeders and shelters to pay a greater share of the cost for inspecting those facilities. In the 2017 session, the debate has mushroomed beyond money to include adjustment of inspection policies for 2,300 animal shelters, rescues and foster care facilities and about 330 licensed breeders.

Hoffman, the Coldwater Republican serving as chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, stands at the epicenter of competing factions struggling over fairness of proposed fee increases and ideas to transform inspection protocol.

Hoffman said he didn’t like the reform bill passed 34-5 by the Senate, but his bid to reshape Senate Bill 47 into something acceptable to himself and the Department of Agriculture failed. His own House committee preferred the Senate’s version of the bill and balked at the chairman’s idea of raising from $10 to $40 a state fee on foster homes, which help shelters care for animals.

House GOP leaders, at Hoffman’s urging, formally removed the Senate bill from the House’s debate calendar.

"That bill’s not going anywhere in the House as it is," Hoffman said. "We do want to make sure there is some level of responsible care for these animals."

As the House’s lead negotiator on agriculture bills, Hoffman is trying to convince a six-person, House-Senate negotiating committee to accept a bill closer to the version originally sought by the Department of Agriculture. That would avoid tricky policy issues of interest to lobbyists and legislators.

Midge Grinstead, senior state director in Kansas for the Human Society of the United States, said the approach advocated by Hoffman and the Brownback administration wouldn’t place the state at forefront of the fight against animal cruelty.

"It does not address the serious animal health and welfare problems that make Kansas the No. 3 worst puppy mill state in the country," she said.

Any compromise bill would be acted upon after the Legislature returned May 1 to Topeka.

"We have a responsibility to treat people fairly," said Sen. Marci Francisco, a Lawrence Democrat who questioned inequities woven into the Department of Agriculture’s proposals.

Rep. Doug Blex, R-Independence, said it would be ludicrous to apply the same type of surprise-inspection principles in use at child care centers to facilities devoted to raising puppies.

"These are dogs. They’re not humans," Blex said.

Deep battle lines have been drawn among organizations engaged in the business of animal breeding, especially of dogs and cats, and those involved in operation of animal shelters serving neglected or abandoned animals. The livestock industry has grown weary of paying inspection fees diverted by the agriculture department to pay for regulation of pet animal facilities.

All pet animal businesses can be subject to inspection by the state Department of Agriculture, but a bipartisan group of legislators want to pass a state law forbidding the agriculture department from giving breeders advance notice of inspections.

There is a desire among lawmakers to assess special fees on facilities that skip inspection appointments or must be reinspected after failed reviews. In 2016, the state reported 211 inspections in which a facility operator failed to show and 52 failed inspections.

Sharon Munk, representing dog breeder BJ’s & Guys of Menlo, sent a letter to members of the nonprofit organization Kansas Pet Professionals that sought defeat of policy reforms endorsed by Humane Society of the United States, or HSUS. The letter shared with the Governor’s Pet Animal Advisory Board showed Munk’s support for base fee hikes, but no special fee for no-show or failed inspections.

"If possible HSUS needs to know that they don’t run the show in Kansas," Munk’s letter said. "We the people, is what the advisory board is made up of."

Under the Senate’s bill, a second seat on the Governor’s Pet Animal Advisory Board would be given to a representative of shelters, rescue or foster licensees. The current nine-member board has five breeder representatives as well as one person each serving interests of pet store owners, boarders, research facilities and the shelter community.

The bill also would allow state inspectors to review veterinary records at facilities under jurisdiction of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. However, Hoffman said, "the breeders prefer we don’t put this in at all."