Topeka ? Right out of the chute, state legislative leaders are on a collision course with Gov.-elect Kathleen Sebelius over the budget.

Through her successful campaign, Sebelius promised she would not cut funding to public schools, which consume half the state budget.

Last week, she repeated that vow despite a round of cuts by outgoing Gov. Bill Graves that spared schools but sliced services to potentially thousands of low-income elderly and disabled Kansans.

“I’ve said all along that I won’t support a budget that cuts public education,” Sebelius said.

But with state revenue trailing the cost of services by 15 percent to 20 percent, some lawmakers say schools cannot be protected from the budget ax.

“Our fiscal problems are so deep, you cannot balance the budget without looking at everything,” said state Rep. Doug Mays, R-Topeka, who will become speaker of the House on Jan. 13, at the same time Sebelius, a Democrat, is sworn into office as governor.

Legislators say they are feeling the heat from constituents and advocacy groups after social service agencies acted on Graves’ latest round of cuts.

“When you cut social services, you really hurt individuals who desperately need the government’s help,” Mays said. “People are going to be hurt by this. The only logical approach is to spread this across the entire spectrum of the budget.”

Ax will fall

School officials said they were surprised Graves didn’t include schools in the $312 million cut of other state agencies announced last month. They breathed a momentary sigh of relief, but now are holding their breath because they know schools are being looked at as a likely target for future cuts.

Mark Tallman, a spokesman for the Kansas Association of School Boards, said, “We don’t want to see people lose their social services, but school boards can’t say we are going to turn away kids.”

And, he said, schools have shared in the budgetary pain — absorbing a reduction in the summer, combined with the likelihood they have forfeited supplemental funding the Legislature usually kicks in to make up for expenses over previous estimates, such as an increase in enrollment or spending for at-risk students.

That loss of supplemental funding will amount to about a $50 decrease in state aid per pupil, Tallman said.

He said he didn’t want to see school children pitted against the disabled for a share of the state revenue pie. Instead, he said, the pie needs to be bigger.

“Ultimately, the Legislature is going to have to look at a tax increase,” he said.

But Sebelius also campaigned against tax increases.

Mays said schools would have to be part of the mix when it came to cutting the budget for the next fiscal year, which some estimates indicate will have to be $800 million less than current spending levels of about $4.4 billion.

“I am anxiously awaiting her (Sebelius’) budget proposal to see her pull this rabbit out of the hat,” Mays said.

Higher ed targeted?

Senate President Dave Kerr, R-Hutchinson, is too. “She has successfully convinced the electorate that she has answers that are not apparently very painful, and we want to give her every opportunity to present those,” he said.

Kerr noted that not only had Sebelius promised to protect school funding, but she had promised to protect higher-education funding.

But last week, Sebelius seemed to be backing away from her promise on higher education, saying she wasn’t sure a cut in funding to universities and other institutions could be avoided.

The governor-elect’s task force on education will start meeting in January. Sebelius recently appointed Sylvia White Robinson, a former school teacher and former member of the Kansas Board of Regents, to lead that team and remain as an education adviser.

But Robinson of Kansas City, Kan., said she had no answers to the funding problems.

“These are tough fiscal times for any entity receiving resources from the state,” she said.

Sebelius said the education team would analyze Kansas’ system of education and make recommendations on resources and policy initiatives.

But Robinson said she hadn’t had a chance to review much material on the subject because she was busy ending her job with the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.

“It would be premature to make any comments” on whether education will have to sustain cuts, she said.

State Rep. Tom Sloan, R-Lawrence, was recently named chairman of the House Higher Education Committee. He, too, sees many hard choices and said much of how the funding problems were resolved would rest in Sebelius’ hands.

“The governor’s State of the State address will determine where we go as a Legislature. If she says we have to live within our means, then education will have to take reductions,” Sloan said.

Sebelius will deliver her State of the State speech to a joint meeting of the Legislature on Jan. 15.