State budget director: Brownback will not seek across-the-board cuts

Gov. Sam Brownback will not seek across-the-board budget cuts for next fiscal year, his budget director said in an e-mailed statement Tuesday morning.

The e-mail, sent from Shawn Sullivan to Cabinet secretaries and released by Brownback’s office, comes after Sullivan asked state agencies last month to study the possibility of a 5 percent budget cut.

“As you know, we are in a challenging budget situation and I appreciate the work you put in to your reduced resources proposals. The Governor will not be proposing a budget to the Legislature in January that includes an across-the-board reduction,” Sullivan said in the e-mail. “Some of your reduced resources proposals included reductions to services that would have been harmful to the mission of your agency and the citizens you serve.”

Sullivan’s e-mail, released to the media on Tuesday, does hint that the governor’s office will make targeted cuts for this fiscal year and propose targeted reductions for the next two fiscal years. The state is on pace to have a $20 million shortfall when this fiscal year ends in June.

“Similar to the 19 other states projected to have budget gaps in fiscal year 2017, we will have to make adjustments to our approved budget and will work diligently with the Legislature during the next session on budgets for fiscal year 2018 and 2019,” Sullivan said in the e-mail. “My staff and I will continue to work with you over the next few months on proposals that include administrative efficiencies.”

State agencies and universities submitted budget reports to Sullivan earlier this month, outlining the impact of a 5 percent cut. The governor’s office has said it will not release those reports.

The independent Board of Regents, which oversees the state’s universities, and the Kansas Department of Education, which answers to an independent state board, released documents Monday outlining the impact of a 5 percent cut on universities, early childhood programs and other education-related programs in response to open records requests from The Eagle and other media outlets.

The governor’s office faced criticism from the Kansas Press Association and other transparency advocates for its refusal to disclose the documents. Sullivan’s e-mail criticizes the media for seeking the documents in the first place.

“I do not recall the media taking this same level of interest in the Kansas budget during the previous decade when KPERS was woefully underfunded … or when the State ended fiscal year 2010 with an unconstitutional negative budget ending balance,” Sullivan said in the e-mail. “As you know, the budget is in draft form as it goes through several iterations between September and January and is exempt from KORA.”

Duane Goossen, who served as budget director for the three governors who preceded Brownback, said the documents submitted by agencies were available publicly when he oversaw the budget office from 1998 to 2010.

“We also just simply allowed reporters to come to our conference room, sit down and look at the budget documents the agencies submitted if they wished to do that. … They were certainly open,” said Goossen, who served under Republican Bill Graves and Democrats Kathleen Sebelius and Mark Parkinson.

Doug Anstaett, executive director of the Kansas Press Association, said the Brownback administration has shown a “disdain for the media.”

“It strikes me as odd that the budget director doesn’t believe that the people of Kansas have a right to participate in this process from beginning to end,” Anstaett said.

This story was originally published September 27, 2016 at 12:06 PM with the headline "State budget director: Brownback will not seek across-the-board cuts."