How across-the-board cuts would affect Wichita, other school districts

If lawmakers were to try to fill the current year’s state budget hole through across-the-board spending cuts, Kansas schools would lose about $220 million in state funding.

At a meeting on Monday, the House Appropriations Committee reviewed what a 6.95 percent across-the-board cut to the state’s spending would entail.

Kansas faces a more $340 million budget hole for the current fiscal year, which lawmakers must fill before the end of June. Cutting the budget by 6.95 percent would reduce the state’s budget by $362 million.

The bulk of that money would come out of K-12 education, with Kansas school districts losing about $219 million, according to the state’s Legislative Research Department. The Wichita school district, the state’s largest, would forgo $24.1 million under that scenario.

“I think it just shows how profoundly deep the crisis is,” said Diane Gjerstad, the lobbyist for the Wichita school district. “I mean, the state really is past the tipping point of being able to fund basic government, including schools.”

The Derby and Maize school districts would both lose about $2.8 million if lawmakers were to pursue a cut of that magnitude.

Wichita State University would miss out on nearly $5 million, according to the memo.

The numbers were reviewed as lawmakers weigh a proposal from Gov. Sam Brownback to reduce spending on the state pension system and tap a long-term investment fund as the way to fill the budget hole for the current year.

Rep. J.R. Claeys, R-Salina, a member of the committee, called across-the-board cuts lazy.

“We need to come up with a way – if we’re actually going to do this – of actually digging into budgets and looking where efficiencies can be had,” Claeys said. “The way that it’s set up there, you’re going in with a hatchet.”

Claeys said that lawmakers need to use a “surgeon’s knife” instead of making across-the-board cuts. “I think trying to solve the entire problem with cuts is going to be very difficult, if not impossible.”

Jeff Glendening, the state director of Americans for Prosperity, an organization that advocates for smaller government, said lawmakers should seriously consider making deep cuts. Glendening said that the state’s all-funds budget, which also includes federal aid, has increased by $2 billion in the past five years. “So we need to take a serious look at spending instead of raising taxes,” he said.

Other state services that would see significant reductions if lawmakers were to fill the hole through across-the-board cuts would be the Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services, which would forfeit $25.3 million in funding, and the Kansas Department of Corrections, which would lose $11.5 million.

This story was originally published January 23, 2017 at 2:25 PM with the headline "How across-the-board cuts would affect Wichita, other school districts."