DALLAS — The Kansas Senate Ways and Means Committee Wednesday adopted a proposed state budget for fiscal 2011 that is out of balance by more than $400 million.
The 13-member panel, which includes 10 Republicans and three Democrats, approved sending the measure to the full Senate next week on an 8-2 vote; both opponents were Republicans.
The committee discussed a proposed tax package that would provide an estimated $442 million in additional revenue in fiscal 2011. However, the budget measure was approved without incorporating the proposals that included new taxes as well as increases in existing levies.
Committee chairman Jay Emler, R-Lindborg, said lawmakers will need to agree on at least $412 million of new revenue to balance the proposed Senate budget. His estimate is based on a lower revenue projection for fiscal 2011 from the Consensus Estimating Group last week.
The House Appropriations Committee is considering a competing budget plan that incorporates significant cuts in state spending from fiscal 2010 levels, with no tax increases. The committee’s plan would leave the state with a surplus at the end of fiscal 2011 estimated at approximately $300 million.
The full Legislature is set to reconvene in Topeka on Wednesday to develop a budget for next year and deal with a revenue shortfall in the current fiscal year estimated at almost $90 million.
The Kansas constitution mandates that the state must end the fiscal year with a balanced budget.
The $5.8 billion general fund budget adopted by the Senate panel restores some $40 million of cuts in social service programs made in fiscal 2010 due to declining state revenues.
A provision in the Senate budget measure requires reductions in state agency budgets if July’s official revenue projection for fiscal 2011 is not sufficient to fund the budget approved by the Legislature. Public education and public safety allocations would be exempt from the automatic budget cuts, but all other state agencies would be subject to across-the-board reductions.
Tax increases considered but not incorporated in the Senate budget plan include a temporary increase in the state sales tax on food and clothing to 6.3% from the current 5.3%, a 35-cent increase in the tax on a pack of cigarettes, and a doubling of the taxes on wholesale and retail alcohol sales.
Minority Leader Anthony Hensley, D-Topeka, said Democrats in the Republican-controlled Legislature want a new income tax bracket for high earners included in the tax package.
“We think it should be a share responsibility to fund the budget,” Hensley said at a news conference in Topeka.
