The effects of a state budget crunch are trickling into the Douglas County Courthouse, where officials are struggling to take up the financial slack.

Douglas County commissioners spent most of their Monday morning meeting voicing frustration with the Kansas Legislature’s recent budget decisions, which are pushing various agencies to seek additional funding from the county.

And while there’s money available to make ends meet the county has at least $1 million available in contingency and other funds to cover one-time expenses commissioners say they aren’t likely to raid their own savings to cover the Legislature’s financial squeezing.

Commissioners said the county had a hard enough time keeping money available for emergencies, much less refilling accounts once they were depleted.

“You don’t want to run on empty,” Commissioner Charles Jones said.

“It would make us a lot like the Legislature it would be irresponsible,” Commissioner Bob Johnson said. “It’s (only) OK if you replace your savings account. You need a savings account. The rainy day will come.”

Among the requests for make-up funding discussed Monday:

The Lawrence-Douglas County Health Department wants as much as $63,500 to ensure survival of a case-management program for teen mothers. The department will ask the city of Lawrence for another $42,300.

The Lawrence school district wants the county to consider taking over nursing programs in public schools services that already are being cut to help the district make ends meet for the coming school year.

The county will pay about $120,000 during the rest of this year, and another $240,000 next year, in unanticipated tuition bills to Kansas community colleges and Washburn University. The money will cover out-district tuition bills that were supposed to be covered by the Legislature, which is saving an estimated $3.5 million a year by shifting the costs back to counties.

Commissioners know they can’t do anything about the tuition bills they approved $27,450 in payments Monday but were uncertain about how they would handle the other two requests.

Jones and Johnson said they were likely to support the health department’s Teen Pregnancy Case Management Program, should it need the money. A decision about the department’s grant from the Kansas Department of Health and Environment is expected next week.

The program helps teen mothers avoid second pregnancies until they finish high school and achieve financial independence. The program serves 42 mothers ages 14 to 20; another 23 referrals are pending.

“This is really an investment in these children for the future,” said Kay Kent, the health department’s administrator.

The school nurse issue drew mixed reaction.

Jere McElhaney, commission chairman, said he didn’t welcome requests from other governments seeking money in such a tight budget year.

“Everybody’s in a crunch, and we have to draw the line somewhere,” he said.

Jones said he wanted the county to consider adding school nursing programs to the city-county health department, both to preserve school services and achieve efficiency through the health department.

Johnson said he wanted to wait until later to consider such a request. The school district, when faced with its own budget constraints, decided to scale back nursing operations.

Johnson said the county should wait to see how those cuts fare before deciding how to address health problems in schools, if at all.