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Kansas legislature considering budget
GARDEN CITY, KAN.
(hppr) -
The Kansas legislature is considering budget recommendations from Governor Kathleen Sebelius. State Representative Jeff Whitham of Garden City says the shortfall for this fiscal year ending on June 30th is about 180 million dollars. Whitham explains that state revenue leveled off around 18 months ago and the state significantly decreased spending for the current fiscal year.
We didn't bring it down probably as much as we should have. To give you a little bit of a range there, probably the prior two budget years we probably spent around 8 percent to 9 percent on an increase in the state general fund. In the year that we're in we brought that in to 5.2 percent, we probably should have brought that in a little more.
The governor has submitted a plan that would hold kindergarten through twelfth grade education harmless by not cutting any current spending. However, higher education would face budget cuts under Sebelius' plan.
What the governor's budget proposes is that we have some pretty significant cuts in the Kansas Regents institutions which would be our six universities and Washburn and our about 19 community colleges and some technical colleges, and some pretty significant cuts in revenues that we transfer to cities and counties that allow them to hold their real property tax mill levies down. So, that's going to be part of the rub of deciding how to come at fixing the budget years.
K through 12 makes up more than half of the budget. Whitham says by holding it harmless other areas will have to suffer disproportionate cuts. State Senator Tim Huelskamp of Fowler does not agree with the governor's recommendation against cuts to K through 12 education.
I would go about it differently. The difficulty with her recommendations is that she did very few cuts or actually no mandated cuts or changes for the first six months of the budget year. As a result, we're facing a closing window of time, now it's almost only five months left to find hundreds of millions of dollars of savings. So, her idea that we can exempt 50% of the budget, i.e., K-12 education, just doesn't make any sense.
Huelskamp does not support any tax increases to raise additional revenue; Governor Sebelius also does not support any tax increases. However, Huelskamp says that even if she did, there is not enough time remaining in this fiscal year to raise new revenue. Huelskamp hopes that the governor will submit additional budget recommendations. He says it looks like the senate will vote on the budget for the '09 fiscal year next week. Huelskamp thinks everything should be on the table during budget considerations and that all agencies should be subject to cuts.
We've had a problem here with overspending in the past, which has put us in this situation, so I mean the suggestions that whether it be K through 12 education or any other programs should not have any cuts is unacceptable because these are tough times and everyone needs to share at least equally in getting this budget balanced.
Representative Jeff Whitham hopes the 2009 fiscal budget is voted on within the next three weeks. At that point there will only be five months remaining in the fiscal year to correct the budget shortfall.
And then, if we fix that, we will be around 950 million dollars short in the fiscal year that starts on July one. That's out of a total state fund budget of about 6.2 million dollars.
Whitham says raising taxes is being avoided, but it is likely that some previously planned phase outs of taxes such as the franchise tax and the inheritance tax will be deferred. Both the state house and the senate are in session this week discussing the governor's budget recommendations. Reporting for High Plains Public Radio News, I'm Lindsey Fields.
© Copyright 2009, hppr
(2009-01-22)
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We didn't bring it down probably as much as we should have. To give you a little bit of a range there, probably the prior two budget years we probably spent around 8 percent to 9 percent on an increase in the state general fund. In the year that we're in we brought that in to 5.2 percent, we probably should have brought that in a little more.
The governor has submitted a plan that would hold kindergarten through twelfth grade education harmless by not cutting any current spending. However, higher education would face budget cuts under Sebelius' plan.
What the governor's budget proposes is that we have some pretty significant cuts in the Kansas Regents institutions which would be our six universities and Washburn and our about 19 community colleges and some technical colleges, and some pretty significant cuts in revenues that we transfer to cities and counties that allow them to hold their real property tax mill levies down. So, that's going to be part of the rub of deciding how to come at fixing the budget years.
K through 12 makes up more than half of the budget. Whitham says by holding it harmless other areas will have to suffer disproportionate cuts. State Senator Tim Huelskamp of Fowler does not agree with the governor's recommendation against cuts to K through 12 education.
I would go about it differently. The difficulty with her recommendations is that she did very few cuts or actually no mandated cuts or changes for the first six months of the budget year. As a result, we're facing a closing window of time, now it's almost only five months left to find hundreds of millions of dollars of savings. So, her idea that we can exempt 50% of the budget, i.e., K-12 education, just doesn't make any sense.
Huelskamp does not support any tax increases to raise additional revenue; Governor Sebelius also does not support any tax increases. However, Huelskamp says that even if she did, there is not enough time remaining in this fiscal year to raise new revenue. Huelskamp hopes that the governor will submit additional budget recommendations. He says it looks like the senate will vote on the budget for the '09 fiscal year next week. Huelskamp thinks everything should be on the table during budget considerations and that all agencies should be subject to cuts.
We've had a problem here with overspending in the past, which has put us in this situation, so I mean the suggestions that whether it be K through 12 education or any other programs should not have any cuts is unacceptable because these are tough times and everyone needs to share at least equally in getting this budget balanced.
Representative Jeff Whitham hopes the 2009 fiscal budget is voted on within the next three weeks. At that point there will only be five months remaining in the fiscal year to correct the budget shortfall.
And then, if we fix that, we will be around 950 million dollars short in the fiscal year that starts on July one. That's out of a total state fund budget of about 6.2 million dollars.
Whitham says raising taxes is being avoided, but it is likely that some previously planned phase outs of taxes such as the franchise tax and the inheritance tax will be deferred. Both the state house and the senate are in session this week discussing the governor's budget recommendations. Reporting for High Plains Public Radio News, I'm Lindsey Fields.
© Copyright 2009, hppr
