GOP lawmakers weigh budget ideas in closed meeting

Republican lawmakers reviewed stark budget scenarios on Monday in a closed caucus meeting.

Sen. Carolyn McGinn, R-Sedgwick, the Senate’s budget chairwoman, said she was asked to present options for closing the more than $340 million budget hole the state faces for the current fiscal year at the Senate Republican caucus meeting, which was closed to the media and public.

“I was just there to pose what reality is,” McGinn said.

Gov. Sam Brownback has proposed emptying a $360 million long-term investment fund to fill the budget hole for the current fiscal year, which lasts through June. McGinn said her concern with using all of that money this year is that lawmakers will have “no other places to find money” in future years.

McGinn said lawmakers weighed cuts to K-12 education, the state’s universities and other state agencies.

“All it was was an exercise in making some decisions, and nobody made any decisions,” she said. “And I think people were just pretty shocked to see the 2017 ending balance.”

There’s no requirement that lawmakers open caucus meetings to the public, but closed caucus meetings are rare. The Senate GOP closed two caucus meetings the previous session, while dozens of others were open to the media.

The meeting took place at the office of the Kansas Association of Insurance Agents, which is a short walk from the Capitol.

McGinn said she presented “an interactive Excel sheet that plugged in some of the governor’s proposals, some of our proposals or anything that anybody wanted to talk about so they could see ending balances.”

McGinn said lawmakers don’t have much flexibility for the current fiscal year and that if they want to avoid deep cuts the following two years, they will have to look at tax increases.

“For the out years, if there’s certain essential services that people want to fund they’re going to have to look at the other side of the balance sheet,” McGinn said.

McGinn said the Senate Ways and Means Committee will begin hearings on the governor’s budget proposal on Wednesday but that she is open to other ideas.

“My door is open. Any senator that has a proposal that can get to 21, that’s what my job is,” she said, referring to the number of votes it takes to pass a bill in the Kansas Senate.

This story was originally published January 30, 2017 at 7:02 PM with the headline "GOP lawmakers weigh budget ideas in closed meeting."