Kansas is so poor it must cut funding of its schools and highways, stash away millions to guard against pressures in the next fiscal year and cut every state worker’s pay by 7.5 percent. (Even the governor would feel the knife.) If you don’t believe Kansas is a fiscal basket case, just ask the Republican leadership in the House of Representatives. That’s where these poor-boy proposals are touted.
State senators take a rosier look at Kansas prospects — and a sterner look at state responsibilities. The Senate Ways and Means Committee has tentatively decided to increase school funding and add money for emergency aid and take the state ending balance down to near zero.
Neither the House nor Senate has finished thinking about the budget. It may be a while before the necessary compromises are reached and a bill goes to Gov. Sam Brownback.
With a fierce winter storm under way that will put new fiscal pressure on the Department of Transportation, which already has seen a huge chunk of its budget siphoned away to other departments, the Senate seems prudent to propose additional emergency funding.
Lifting state funding to or above this year’s level should also be done to meet the state’s responsibilities to its youngsters.
Taking school aid back to years-ago levels may sound reasonable to dollar-sign conservatives who put budget cuts first — and have no other definition of progress. But school funding has already been cut so deeply over the past three years that all of the fat is long gone and the knife is now slicing away at the bone and muscle of Kansas classrooms.
Kansas children can’t wait until times get better to get a good education. A year that goes by with the schools impoverished by penny-pinching lawmakers means that all of the kids between kindergarten and high school graduation age get cheated. That year can’t be called back. It’s gone. The damage has been done and can’t be repaired.
Because all children are only young once, the level of excellence of Kansas schools must be kept high every year.
TO KEEP FUNDING level for all school districts without going back to high property taxes, Gov. Brownback and Republican leaders in both Senate and House should look for more revenue through tax reforms. The revenue can be found by repealing exemptions and tax breaks. If necessary, raising income taxes a bit on those most able to pay should be embraced.
The knee-jerk reaction to these suggestions is that raising more revenue would slow the recovery from the recession, or worse. But there is not a shred of evidence to lend credence to this fear. Most states have serious budget problems. Several have already raised taxes to meet the needs they have to educate their children, maintain their transportation systems and meet the fundamental needs of their citizens. But their economies are continuing to rise right along with the rest.
The fact is, of course, that the direction the national economy will take is determined by national and worldwide economic currents far more powerful and pervasive than those that Kansas — which represents less than 1 percent of U.S. gross national product — can generate.
What is true, however, is that keeping Kansas public schools good and moving them to excellence is the best guarantee the Kansas Legislature can give to Kansans that their state will prosper over the long haul.
Saving money by short-changing Kansas kids is like farming on the cheap by planting poor seed and skipping the fertilizer. You count the cost at harvest time.
— Emerson Lynn, jr.
