Topeka ? State Treasurer Tim Shallenburger, one of three Republican gubernatorial candidates, criticized Gov. Bill Graves, said higher education could live with budget cuts and urged lawmakers to search for government waste instead of raising taxes.

Shallenburger’s comments came Tuesday during a meeting with members of the House Appropriations Committee.

Gubernatorial candidate Tim Shallenburger explains his position on the state's budget crisis to members of the House Appropriations Committee. In his appearance Tuesday, Shallenburger said lawmakers should search for waste and he was critical of Gov. Bill Graves.

But Shallenburger, a conservative, provided no specific plan on how to fill a projected record $700 million budget gap.

“I don’t think they expect me, the state treasurer, to go line by line, word by word on what they should do,” Shallenburger told reporters after the standing-room-only meeting.

Rep. Kenny Wilk, R-Lansing, chairman of the budget committee, had invited all gubernatorial candidates to share their ideas about how to balance the budget. Only Shallenburger, a former House speaker, accepted the invitation.

But Wilk said Shallenburger provided little guidance.

“It was very generic in nature,” Wilk said of Shallenburger’s presentation. “Basically it was his campaign message, but that doesn’t do a lot to help us pass a budget today. I was hoping it would be a bit more specific. I was fully prepared to take some of those ideas and incorporate it into the budget.”

Shallenburger criticized Graves, a moderate Republican in his final year of office, for endorsing a tax increase, and said that the Department of Commerce and Housing, which is headed by Graves’ lieutenant governor, Gary Sherrer, could be eliminated to save money.

Sherrer responded to Shallenburger’s remarks by saying, “Nothing he said, frankly, made any sense.”

Afterward, Shallenburger said proposed cuts to higher education were OK with him.

He poked fun at comments made by Kansas University Chancellor Robert Hemenway, who recently said budget cuts on the table were the largest since the Depression.

When people hear that statement, Shallenburger said, “They chuckle. They still got the jet,” referring to KU’s aircraft used by Hemenway and other administrators.

Shallenburger said he did not want to reduce public school funding. But, he said, colleges and universities could sustain a reduction.

“I think the regents can handle it. I don’t think the cuts are going to close them down,” he said.

Asked whether cuts would force tuition increases, Shallenburger replied that the schools all have reserves in their university foundations.

“None of these universities ever want to talk about the amount of money they have in the foundation,” he said. “They’ve got money there if they want to hold tuition down; they could use that. They probably have enough money in the foundation to pay every student’s tuition forever. They are yelling ‘the sky is falling’ disproportionately loud.”