Education supporters have said Kansans would support higher taxes if the money goes to schools. Now there are statistics to back their claim.

Survey results by the Kansas University Policy Research Institute released Wednesday show nearly 60 percent of Kansans would pay more taxes to support K-12 education. Also, 85 percent said they oppose cutting budgets for state colleges and universities.

Don Brown, spokesman for Gov. Bill Graves, said the results fly in the face of legislators who say Kansans don’t support higher taxes for schools.

But Rep. Kenny Wilk, a Lansing Republican and chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, said he didn’t think the study would sway the Legislature, where members face at least a $426 million shortfall in the state budget for the upcoming year.

“It’ll make for some interesting reading,” Wilk said of the study. “Do I think that survey will motivate legislators? No.”

KU researchers interviewed about 1,600 randomly selected Kansans between Nov. 6 and Feb. 8 during their annual Kansas Policy Survey. The survey had a margin of error of 1.7 percent.

Asked about funding levels for colleges and universities, 38.1 percent responding said they thought funding should increase, 51.6 percent said it should stay the same, and 5.7 percent said it should decrease. 4.6 percent didn’t know. For the same question about K-12 schools, 59.3 percent said it should increase, 35.4 percent said stay the same and 2.9 percent said decrease. 2.3 percent said they didn’t know.

The survey showed Kansans prefer higher sales taxes to raise money for K-12 education, and that a majority 54.5 percent said a candidate’s position on education issues is “very important” when they decide for whom to vote.

Officials with KU and Lawrence public schools said the survey results support their claim taxpayers don’t want to cut education spending.

“There’s an awareness now that K-12 education is in need of support,” said Lawrence Public Schools Supt. Randy Weseman. “They realize there needs to be a moderate increase in taxes to support a struggling system.”

Brown, the governor’s spokesman, said the survey indicates anti-tax sentiment is coming from “a vocal minority of legislators who simply have found a no vote is the easiest vote.”

But Rep. Ralph Tanner, a Baldwin Republican, said legislators would question the study’s accuracy and wondered if it was manipulated to support education funding.

“That’s a very simplistic kind of approach to things,” he said of the survey questions. “I suppose the public policy people believe this is the way people think.”

Chad Kniss, manager of KU’s Survey Research Center, stood by the survey results.

“A lot of people see education as a good investment to make,” he said.