Kansas University will have to reduce staffing and class offerings unless the Legislature raises new revenue for the state budget, Chancellor Robert Hemenway said Wednesday.

Other effects of possible budget cuts could include reduced hours at the university’s museums and computer labs, Hemenway said.

Hemenway’s assessment was based on a budget drafted by Gov. Bill Graves that assumes no new state revenue in fiscal 2003, which starts July 1. That plan would reduce the higher education budget by 4 percent, with the university’s appropriation falling to $133.2 million from this year’s $138.7 million.

Although Graves submitted the plan last month as required by law, he also has proposed a $228 million tax increase to prevent some spending cuts.

“The university has never been in greater peril,” Hemenway said at a meeting of the William Allen White Foundation’s trustees, a group affiliated with the university’s journalism school. “You have to go back to the Depression to find anything comparable.”

In Topeka, House Appropriations Chairman Kenny Wilk said Hemenway was overstating the seriousness of the possible cuts facing higher education system. However, Wilk said, a budget with no new revenue would lead to significant cuts in programs.

“Yes, it’s painful, but I don’t think he’s going to be closing up the university,” said Wilk, R-Lansing.

The state must close a projected $426 million gap between expected revenues and spending commitments for fiscal 2003.

Both the House and Senate budget committees plan to start their work with the budget Graves submitted and not assume any new revenues. Leaders have said they don’t yet know how much legislators were willing to increase taxes.

“For the time being, we have to operate on what we have,” said Senate Ways and Means Chairman Steve Morris, R-Hugoton.

Hemenway said the Graves plan would also mean a drop in funding for the KU Medical Center in Kansas City, to $100.6 million from this year’s $104.3 million.

At the same time, Hemenway said, the two campuses must cover $5.8 million in additional salary and health insurance costs.

“There are some jobs at the university that would probably have to be eliminated,” Hemenway said. “There would be some pink slips issued.”

Hemenway said money could be saved by offering fewer, more crowded classes. Another method, he said, would be to limit museum and computer lab hours.

“We have no illusions,” he said. “We’re fully conscious that we’re going to have to tighten our belts.”

He added, however, “Let’s make sure we don’t decimate the good that has been done by the university over the last five or six years.”