Vratil: Get ready for cuts

If you thought budget cuts the Kansas Legislature made last year to deal with the state’s revenue shortfalls were horrific, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. But two Johnson County legislators differ in how they think the state’s fiscal 2011 budget crisis will be solved.

Senate Vice President and Ways and Means Committee Vice Chair John Vratil, R-Leawood, said legislators likely will face a $500 million shortfall when they convene for the 2010 session in January.

And he is predicting even deeper cuts than last year.

“We’re going to (have) to shut down prisons and release violent criminals onto the streets,” he said. “It’s entirely possible (state-funded mental health and disability programs) will go by the wayside. I think it’s entirely possible you’ll see cuts to Medicaid; that takes up 16 percent of our budget.”

House Appropriations Committee Chair Kevin Yoder, R-Overland Park, said the shortfall gives legislators an opportunity to examine current programs and agencies and fine-tune state government.

“People expect government to figure it out without coming to them for additional taxes; that would be the easy answer,” he said. “This crisis gives us the opportunity to make government more efficient, to make it leaner, and to essentially have a government that functions better for taxpayers.

“It just takes a lot of time and effort and bipartisanship to work and find the proper mix of spending and policy changes to come up with the results that are satisfactory.”

Yoder said members of the appropriations committee have been meeting monthly since July discussing options such school district consolidation and other policy changes that could significantly reduce state spending.

“Our perspective is that we get a menu of options together. We’re hoping to make reductions as painless as possible, and to do that it requires time and study and research to prepare, and that’s what we’ve been doing this fall so that we can hit the ground running when we go back into session in January,” he said. “The shortfall might actually give us an opportunity to do some things that we should be doing anyway.”

While Vratil is predicting up to 25 percent cuts to all state budgets, he said funding reduction to education will fall well short of that because of the two-years’ worth of federal stimulus money the state is receiving.

To qualify for the stimulus money, he said state funding for education cannot fall below the 2006 level. If funding goes below that mark, the state would have to pay back $600 million, the $300 million it received this year and the $300 million it is scheduled to receive in 2010.

“We have a state general fund budget of $6 billion, two-thirds of that goes to K-12 and higher education, (meaning) $4 billion goes to K-12 and higher education,” Vratil said. “We can only cut about $15 million more from education: $11 million from K-12 and $4 million from higher education. So that’s nominal.

“We’re going to have to cut $500 million from the remaining $2 billion that goes to all other state agencies. That’s a 25 percent cut for everybody including public safety, transportation, everything.

“You can’t do that without doing great damage.”

But Yoder said education funding could fall below the 2006 level.

“There’s a provision in the (stimulus) bill that allows states to ask for a waiver and there are some states below the ’06 level,” he said. “There’s yet to be a state that has had any funds taken away; everybody’s had their school finance application approved.

“I’m not overly concerned about the federal stimulus act; I’m more concerned about how we manage our state budget in a way that doesn’t result in massive tax increases or destructive spending cuts that damage the very fabric of our services. If you do an across-the-board (25 percent) cut, then you probably would end up doing some real havoc because you would be cutting programs that are good and bad.”

Yoder said appropriations has met with school superintendents from throughout the state, including Shawnee Mission, to get input and feedback on how last year’s funding cuts affect schools.

“We’ve tried to learn the impact of what was already done before we can go forward and solve the next deficit funding,” Yoder said. “An example would be school district consolidation as a way to save money.

“We’ve not specifically talked about Johnson County; what we’ve been looking at are districts that are small by choice, those are school districts we’re paying as a state a lot of extra money because they have maybe 200 to 300 kids next to another district that has a small amount of kids.

“We think there are some opportunities to reduce some administrative cost while protecting the money that goes to the classroom.”

Vratil said members of the ways and means committee will meet Dec. 15 to talk about the upcoming session’s budget issues.

“That will be our first opportunity to get together and consider the situation,” he said. “I have no (ideas) at this time; I expect the Senate Ways and Means Committee will receive a lot of information on the 15th.

“I just know it’s going to be even worse than last year.”

Gov. Mark Parkinson is expected to announce cuts later this month to balance the current 2010 budget. He has said he will “take whatever steps are necessary” to balance the 2010 budget before January. He then will concentrate on the 2011 budget he will propose during his State of the State address in January.

Vratil said he would urge Parkinson to cut the $15 million from education because that would take education out of the budget debate.

“I don’t know what the governor is going to do; there’s a part of me that hopes he cuts education through allotments down to the minimum so we are then done with education,” he said. “I hope he takes it down to the 2006 level. I hope he makes that cut and then the Legislature won’t have to deal with education anymore because we’re at the bottom.”

The rest of the cuts will be aimed at state-funded budgets, Vratil said. He said he thinks tax increases will be debated at the end of the session.

“I don’t think you’ll hear much about tax increases until the end of the legislative session when it suddenly dawns on most legislators that there’s no other way to balance the budget,” he said.

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