Topeka ? Bill Graves doesn’t think his eight years as governor will be remembered much in the future.

Perhaps some Kansans will recall the $13.5 billion, 10-year transportation plan enacted in 1999, he says. Others may remember him for the statue of the Kansa Indian that he insisted go atop the Statehouse dome, despite the state’s financial problems.

He doesn’t think they’ll blame him more than anyone else for the state’s financial problems, which will persist after he leaves office.

“I think the legacy thing gets a little bit overblown,” he said. “I only know that we tried to do the best we could at the time with the information we had and with the Legislature that was a partner in our decision-making.”

After his second term ends Jan. 13, Graves will become the chief executive officer of the American Trucking Assns., lobbying for the industry in Washington.

With less than a month to go in office, Graves finds himself dealing with what some officials have described as the state’s worst budget crisis since the Great Depression.

The state faces a projected deficit of $312 million on June 30. The gap between expected revenues and spending commitments in the next 18 months is more than $1 billion. Revenue collections have fallen short of expectations for months.

Graves has imposed $119 million in spending cuts in the current budget. He’s decided the state shouldn’t repay $94.5 million taken from highway projects for general government programs. He is withholding $48 million in aid to local governments, for which cities and counties plan to sue him.

He’s also leaving the budget problems for Gov.-elect Kathleen Sebelius.

“Kansans, they’re going to make up their own minds based on their sort of stations in life,” he said.

“If you’re at a coffee shop, looking at the want ads because you’ve been laid off from your job, you probably don’t think much of Bill Graves’ performance as governor and you don’t think much of the Kansas Legislature and its performance. You’ve got every reason to be unhappy.”

Kansas Gov. Bill Graves talks about his governorship during an interview in his Topeka office. After serving eight years, Graves is leaving office in January to become the chief executive officer of the American Trucking Assns.

After his first term, enormous popularity seemed Graves’ legacy.

In 1998, while running for re-election and with economic times good, he took credit for cutting taxes, a cumulative total of $2.7 billion by his reckoning. He won the general election with 73 percent of the vote, the highest ever.

At least a few legislators – and many more education and social service advocates – blame those tax cuts for the seriousness of the state’s problems now.

In his recent interview, Graves wouldn’t concede the argument. He said the state would have built even more spending into its budget if it hadn’t cut taxes. He also argued that if some critics within his own Republican Party had gotten their way, the tax cuts would have been even deeper.

He did acknowledge that the state could have set more money aside and made the current situation better.

But he added, “That’s not the nature of the Legislature.”

“The Legislature doesn’t come here to save money for rainy days,” he said. “They come here to spend money to be able to go home and make their constituents feel good about it.”

He continued to blame the state’s problems on the economic slump that followed the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks last year.

“The argument that some are suggesting is in effect saying 47 states, Republican governors, Democratic governors, Republican legislatures, Democratic legislatures, all did the same thing at the same time,” he said. “I mean, they’re all guilty because they’re now in these economic doldrums.

“I would suggest to you that a lot of good people in all those states made the best decisions they could with the information they had at that time.”

A few minutes later, he dismissed the whole notion of trying to assign blame for the state’s financial problems.

“Who’s fault is it?” he said. “What difference does it make? Is it going to make the world better for everybody?

“See, I think the politicians are erring when they think citizens make clear distinctions. I think when it comes to this kind of a problem, they actually want the political labels to just go away.”

He said he expected Sebelius and the 2003 Legislature to take the same approach he and legislators took this year to solve budget problems, a mix of spending reductions and tax increases.

“We like government a lot more than we like to admit it,” he said.

“We like good schools. We like roads that are paved and not full of potholes. We don’t like long lines at the driver’s license station. We like the diversity of services available for our moms and dads when they become senior citizens and need long-term care.”