It quickly became a touchy subject there, where thousands of people still haven’t gotten refunds. Republican state Sen. Jeff Colyer said he raised the alarm that the state may not be able to make the payments back in August.

“It’s unfair to taxpayers,” said Colyer, a surgeon from Overland Park. “It’s creating a cash-flow concern for these people. They rely on tax refunds for a big purchase, or to make a house payment. People have already budgeted how that money will be spent.”

Other states have had to be a bit more inventive.

Missouri, which delayed issuing income tax refunds earlier this year, ultimately used $250 million of federal economic stimulus money to pay hundreds of thousands of refunds.

And Maryland, which still has about 3,000 filings left, dipped into a $366 million reserve account that many lawmakers didn’t even know existed. Legislators hope to pay it back in 10 years.

Meanwhile, analysts say the delays essentially rob the poor of what had become an extra paycheck.

“Low-income families rely on that money getting reimbursed to them in the spring,” said Mike Herald, a lobbyist for the Western Center on Law and Poverty, a Los Angeles-based advocacy group for the poor. “They pay bills with that money, they buy furniture — a lot of people rely on that income.”