Bemoaning the Budget

Kansas budget director Duane Goossen told the House Appropriations Committee last week that the state’s tight budget situation is not likely to improve next year.

“We are in a very unprecedented situation,” the budget chief testified to lawmakers.

Kansas had never seen revenue decline for two years in a row, he said, but now it has seen tax collections go down for four years.

The revenue problem will not be alleviated solely through increased governmental efficiencies or other simple solutions, according to Goossen.

“We are beyond those,” he said. “We are simply cutting because we don’t have the resources to fund state government at the levels we are used to or would do if these were normal times.”

Goossen outlined to the Appropriation Committee the legal steps, including transfers and spending reductions, that lawmakers must approve in order to authorize the $259 million in fiscal 2010 spending cuts that were ordered last week by Gov. Mark Parkinson.

The governor’s latest spending reductions are the fifth round since the budget was approved earlier this year.

The planned cuts reduce state expenditures for public and higher education to 2006 levels, while also eliminating some $50 million in state highway maintenance projects.

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