Topeka ? Legislators now face the hard choices.

How many teachers will lose their jobs? How many first-graders will be crammed into a single classroom?

How many elderly Kansans won’t get hot meals during the week? Will more parents of disabled children have to quit work to stay home with their youngsters? Will the courts be closed on some weekdays?

Legislators have been waiting for new revenue estimates before starting meaningful discussions on the budget to finance state government after July 1. They received those numbers Friday.

Inevitable decisions

Most bills lawmakers can ignore, and state government will go on. But they’re not done with their work until the last appropriations bill passes  and the next budget balances.

“We have to have a budget by July 1, or everything shuts down,” said Rep. Melvin Minor, D-Stafford, a member of the House Appropriations Committee.

Legislators began the year facing a $426 million gap between expected revenues and spending required by state and federal law. Creating much of the hole were promises that legislators made when times were good to finance highway projects and provide more money for higher education.

But with more pessimistic revenue estimates, the gap has grown to $675 million, so legislators don’t face merely a choice of raising taxes or breaking important promises.

They must decide whether to increase taxes  even though the state’s economy is slumping and some families are suffering financially  or to cut services.

Most legislative leaders believe the solution will be a painful combination of the two.

Each number on paper represents a policy decision, and many decisions will affect individual Kansans directly.

If aid for education is cut, some public schools are likely to reduce their teaching staffs and have larger classes. Universities are likely to scale back their course offerings.

Social services present a special problem, because the cost of providing services for the needy is rising, and some services are mandated by federal law.

Worsening prospects

When the session began, Gov. Bill Graves submitted a proposed budget that assumed no new revenues and reduced aid to education, cut social services, closed minimum-security prisons and canceled highway projects.

Now, legislators may need to increase taxes just to prevent the budget from being worse than Graves’ austere proposal  labeled unacceptable by many lawmakers.

“We’re going to have to have help from additional tax revenues to get out of this,” said Senate Ways and Means Committee Chairman Steve Morris, R-Hugoton. “None of us wants to raise taxes, but we have no choice this year.”

The House plans to begin its discussions with what Speaker Kent Glasscock has called “build-your-own-salad week.”

Throughout the week, the House plans to debate proposals for increasing taxes.

Next week, the Appropriations Committee will begin fashioning a budget based on what  if anything  passes.

Butting heads

Glasscock, R-Manhattan, said he expects the House to have to repeat the whole process at least once because many members need to see the worst-possible budget to accept the idea of increasing taxes in an election year.

Minor said, “I don’t have any doubt that these tax measures, at this time, will be defeated. I think the idea is that once everybody sees how serious the cuts have to be, maybe there will be some change of heart.”

Minor defends Glasscock’s approach, saying, “The speaker has to do something,” but Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley, D-Topeka, thinks the result will be a “three-ring circus.”

Senate President Dave Kerr decided to appoint a special committee  a “working group”  to draw the outlines of a budget and draft tax proposals.

Legislators haven’t started the serious discussions earlier partly because they’ve been consumed with redrawing legislative and congressional districts to reflect shifts in population during the past decade.

But they’ve also been waiting for the latest revenue estimates.

Issues on hold

As they’ve waited, they’ve discussed issues like abortion, restricting telemarketers, a tougher child passenger safety law, making it more difficult for some couples to obtain a divorce and even discouraging unwanted e-mail “spam.”

None of those issues drives the session. Even redistricting, a constitutionally mandated duty, can be dumped on state and federal courts in extreme circumstances.

But the Kansas Constitution says that the only way any government agency can spend any money is “in pursuance of a specific appropriation made by law,” something only the Legislature can provide.

That makes every other issue, as Glasscock puts it, “a precursor to the budget.”

Hensley said: “There is no safety net or backup to protect us if we fail to do the job.”