Governor Cuts $56 Million

Gov. imposes $56M state cut

Gov. Sam Brownback moved Friday to plug a $56.5 million budget hole and rebalance state finances after giving up on House and Senate negotiators working to resolve a political stalemate.

Brownback’s action, which takes mostly from public schools, would get the state’s budget to zero for the fiscal year, assuming revenue collections through June meet expectations. State law gives the governor the authority to impose budget cuts, but only to get to zero, not create a cushion.

The Department of Education said the cuts reduce the state aid by $75 per student — from $4,012 to $3,937.

The Legislature so far failed to adopt a rescission bill the governor recommended in early January. After two months of House and Senate wrangling, Brownback simply threw up his hands and imposed his will.

However, the Senate's Democratic leader said legislators still must vote to affirm the piece of Brownback's plan shifting $49 million to mandatory payments for child welfare cases and disability services.

"He hasn't balanced the budget," said Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley, D-Topeka. "It still requires legislative action."

Hensley also said he was seeking clarification from legislative staff to determine whether the governor was properly following finer points of the state's budget allotment law.

Brownback had given legislative negotiators until the end of business Friday to strike a budget agreement. The two sides were millions of dollars apart and offered little hope of a last-minute breakthrough.

"We've got to move now to be able to get to zero," Brownback said.

The Kansas Constitution forbids an end-of-the-year deficit.

House negotiators insisted they were ready to continue talks as the deadline loomed, but Senate members involved in the showdown suggested Brownback's decision to use the allotment process ended debate on that bill.

"I appreciate the governor's willingness to make allotments to balance revenues and expenditures," said House Speaker Mike O'Neal, R-Hutchinson. "The House remains committed to establishing a healthy ending balance after funding necessary programs."

The House version of the budget would have left about $35 million on the state's year-end ledger, while the Senate proposal would have dropped that closer to $20 million.

Sen. Laura Kelly, a Topeka Democrat on the Senate budget committee, said House conferees didn't negotiate in good faith.

She said the governor's preference for allotments could pull Kansas out of compliance with federal regulations regarding state aid to special education.

"If we fail to fund these mandates, Kansas will forfeit more than $100 million in federal funds that could be used in future budget years. Those funds won’t ever be replaced," Kelly said.

House and Senate conferees locked horns over spending on K-12 education.

The Senate wanted to increase expenditures for special education to prevent the state from losing millions of dollars in federal aid to education. The House sought guarantees the Legislature would go beyond education cuts recommended by Brownback.

Senate Vice President John Vratil, a Leawood Republican, said relationship among the three House and three Senate negotiators had soured.

"A lack of trust makes it very difficult to continue the negotiations," Vratil said.

House Appropriations Committee Chairman Marc Rhoades, R-Newton, said he didn't believe the Senate fairly considered the House's position and quit before the job was done.

"Despite the Senate's failure to meet today," he said, "the House is anxious to continue working through the conference committee process to achieve the governor's goal of a $35 million ending balance."

Brownback asked the Legislature to send to his desk by the end of January a bill fixing the current year's budget.

The financial dispute in the Capitol continued more than five weeks later despite a Republican governor and overwhelming GOP majorities in the House and Senate.

Hensley said Brownback, a Republican, shared blame for failing to convince GOP leadership to reach a compromise.

"It's unprecedented that any governor be forced to make allotments in the middle of a session due to the inaction of members of his own party," Hensley said. "The Grand Old Party is floundering."

Brownback said more than 110,000 Kansans were looking for employment and the attention of politicians in Topeka must be on expanding the state's economy so people could return to work.

"We do that and we’ll have additional funding for everyone’s budget priorities," he said.

Brownback urged House and Senate members to put a collective shoulder to the grindstone and begin serious work crafting a new fiscal year 2012 budget that continued to shrink state expenditures.

"I look forward to working with the Kansas Legislature to building a fiscal year 2012 budget that gets our state back on the road of fiscal responsibility and stability," the governor said.

Brownback made the pivotal budget decision on the same day he signed his first bill into law. The measure allows businesses with more than 250 vehicles to register as fleets with the state rather than individually in each county.

"This is a common-sense bill that reduces government regulation," he said.