State budget cuts could hurt health center
Staff and wire reports
Friday, February 13, 2009
A plan to cut $326 million from the current year’s budget won final legislative approval Thursday in Topeka, and the result may be felt in public health services in Lyon County.
The Kansas Department of Health and Environment is one agency that is affected by the cuts. Lougene Marsh, executive director of Flint Hills Community Health Center said she learned this morning that an additional 1.25 percent was tacked onto the cut that was already proposed for KDHE. The health center is already expecting a 5.5 percent cut in the money it receives from KDHE for the primary care clinic. Marsh said she is unsure what the additional cuts to KDHE’s budget will do to the center’s budget.
“How that will affect us is completely dependent on how that additional 1.25 percent is applied,” Marsh said. “If they go down the line and go 1.25, 1.25, 1.25, then the additional amount at Flint Hills would be another $1,500 to $2,000, something in that range.
“It’s still a little bit unknown until the application of that additional (cut) is actually applied to the budget document. We are hoping for the best-case scenario.”
Public schools would lose almost $28 million in base state aid plus more than $4 million in funds for special education programs. Those reductions were endorsed by the House, but senators wanted to reduce base aid by less than $7 million and leave the special education funds unchanged.
Gov. Kathleen Sebelius could veto the cuts in school aid and let the rest of the bill stand, and spokeswoman Beth Martino said Wednesday that the governor “remains concerned” about its education reductions.
But on Thursday, Martino said only, “We are going to take a very close look at the bill.”
Legislative researchers estimate that the bill will not only eliminate the deficit but leave the state with $127 million in cash reserves as of June 30. But many legislators believe revenues will fall short of expectations in coming months, causing any potential cushion to dwindle or even disappear.
Higher education and many state agencies will have their operating budgets reduced 4.3 percent. The Department of Corrections has already announced plans to close minimum-security prison units in Osawatomie, Toronto and Winfield and to suspend some programs for inmates by April 1.
The reductions are smaller for social service agencies, where some programs are protected from reductions. The bill even adds new dollars for in-home services for the disabled.
Aid to public schools is a key issue because, at $3.79 billion, it consumes half of the state’s general tax revenues. Even freezing it, as Sebelius wanted, would force the state to reallocate dollars because of how costs shift among districts.
Some states so far have avoided cuts in public school aid in addressing their financial problems, including Arkansas, Michigan, New Hampshire and the Dakotas.
But Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour cut his state’s school aid by 3 percent, and North Carolina Gov. Beverly Perdue ordered schools to reduce their spending 2 percent by June 30. New Mexico’s legislature trimmed 1 percent.
The cut in Kansas also is about 1 percent of schools’ total aid.
“We certainly haven’t seen the impact that some states have had,” said Mark Tallman, a lobbyist for the Kansas Association of School Boards.
But Tallman said districts still face difficulties because they’re locked into contracts with most of their personnel. He said they’ll delay equipment purchases, restrict travel and deplete their cash reserves. A dozen districts have no cash reserves, according to the state Department of Education.
“Districts are not going to want to interrupt programs,” he said. “You may not be able to fund the summer school program.”