Just when the Lawrence school board came to terms with nearly $5 million in spending cuts and fee increases, there’s word that they might have to dig deeper.

On Monday, the Kansas Department of Education asked Lawrence public school district officials to assess what would be the result if the 2002 Legislature made massive cuts in appropriations to school districts enough to require $8 million in adjustments by the local school board.

“That would set us back 10 years,” said Austin Turney, Lawrence school board member. “Eight million dollars would really begin to strip down the academics to some fairly minimal levels.”

So far, the board has focused on preserving jobs of classroom teachers. They instead reduced staff in nursing, counseling, fine arts, special education and other support areas to come up with a two-phase plan for balancing the district’s 2002-2003 budget.

It calls for $2.8 million in spending cuts and fee hikes in the first phase and $1.9 million from those sources in the second phase.

Supt. Randy Weseman urged the school board to set a target of about $5 million in anticipation the Legislature wouldn’t be generous with appropriations to public school districts.

Now, with the state’s revenue shortfall surpassing $680 million, the possibility of scaling back spending or raising fees a total of $8 million is being discussed in Topeka.

“That’s been the fear that as the deficit grows, our assumptions change with them,” said Scott Morgan, school board member. “We got to $5 million without getting into the classroom. To get $3 million more, your options get pretty limited.”

He said taxpayers of Kansas were waking up to the reality of a Legislature that slashed taxes when state revenue was greater than expected, but refuses to consider tax hikes when revenue falters.

“People need to recognize what schools are up against right now,” Morgan said. “The $5 million cut woke a lot of people up. If enough people are awakened, we’ll get some sanity back in the way we finance our educational system.”

Gov. Bill Graves has called for just such a revolution in the Legislature, urging people to work during the election season to defeat politicians who vote against public schools.

Board member Leni Salkind said the Legislature not local school boards was angling to undermine public education.

“It’s the position that the state’s put us in,” she said. “So far, it doesn’t look like anyone wants to increase revenue.”

She said moving deeper into the Lawrence district’s budget would make people “very upset.”

“It occurs to me we’ll see increased class sizes, unless there are support jobs that can go,” Salkind said.