TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — The Kansas Senate has approved a proposal for a pilot program to have married couples who don’t smoke or drink alcohol serve as foster parents for abused and neglected children.

The vote Tuesday was 24-15 on a bill from conservative Republican Sen. Forrest Knox of Altoona. The measure goes next to the House.

Knox’s bill sets up a program in which couples in “stable” marriages for at least seven years volunteer to be foster parents. Only one spouse in a so-called CARE foster family could work outside the home.

But such couples could be reimbursed by the state for up to $4,000 a year in home or private schooling expenses.

Critics predicted the measure would siphon money from public schools and said passing it suggests other families aren’t as good.

The Senate has also passed a bill to lessen the penalties for sexting by middle and high school students in hopes that prosecutors will be willing to combat the practice.

The vote Tuesday was 40-0. The bill goes next to the House, and its members approved their own version of the legislation earlier this month.

Both measures focus on 12- to 18-year-olds accused of transmitting images of a nude child. Under existing state law, prosecutors are restricted to filing a felony charge that carries a prison sentence up to 11 years and four months and lifetime registration as a sex offender.

Both chambers’ bills make a first offense by someone 18 or younger a misdemeanor, punishable by up to a year in jail.