State financial woes are the new normal in Kansas

For three years running, Kansas has not received enough revenue to pay bills, leaving the general fund bank account utterly empty. Kansas has a rainy-day fund on paper, but without money in it. The highway fund has borrowed to its limits, with road and bridge maintenance cut and many construction projects canceled.

Each month, as revenue falls short of expectations, something more must be cut. In March the cuts fell on universities, then on road projects, then on hospitals and doctors who provide Medicaid services, then on the universities again. Finally, to finish the fiscal year at the end of June, the governor simply decided that millions of dollars in bills would go unpaid, pushing them off for payment in a future fiscal year.

In January, the next Legislature will face the daunting task of building a new budget in which even a constrained set of expenses outpaces revenue by hundreds of millions. Plus, those future legislators will be saddled with the bills that current legislators and the governor left unpaid this year.

What happens when the next recession comes? What happens as roads and bridges continue to deteriorate? What happens as rural hospitals close? What happens as school funding proves to be inadequate? Kansas is ill-prepared to deal with any of it.

Scraping by for a time, tapping savings and using up one-time resources might be justified if those tactics were a bridge to a more permanent solution. But there is no correction in place, no fix ready to kick in. The current financial trajectory leaves Kansas destined to stumble from crisis to crisis, dealing constantly with financial uncertainty.

Special sessions. Fights with the Kansas Supreme Court. Schools on the brink. Unwelcome national publicity. Bills paid late. Waiting lists for services. Deteriorating bridges.

Get used to it, Kansans, because this will be our new normal unless we chart a different financial course.

This story was originally published July 2, 2016 at 12:05 AM with the headline "State financial woes are the new normal in Kansas."