Topeka ? Higher education will suffer irreparable cuts if the House refuses to approve a tax increase, Kansas Board of Regents Chairman Clay Blair said Monday.

“I consider what is happening in the House as perhaps the most severe crisis for higher education in the modern era. It’s a Pearl Harbor-like event,” Blair said during an emergency conference-call meeting of the regents.

The House on Monday was expected to consider an approximately $300 million tax increase that would raise the state sales, cigarette, inheritance and liquor taxes, while also giving tax breaks to some businesses.

Rep. Brenda Landwehr, R-Wichita, was unhappy with Blair’s criticisms of the House.

“The regents needs to get off its high horse and come to the table and be a partner,” Landwehr said.

She said every state agency has had to sacrifice during the budget crisis, but Blair “wants his list, period.”

She said the criticism of conservative Republicans by Graves, Senate President Dave Kerr, R-Hutchinson, and Blair, was not helping the situation.

“It probably makes some people dig in their heels even more,” she said.

The tax increase is opposed by conservative Republicans who say it will hurt the state’s economy and those who have been recently laid off. Democrats oppose the tax increase, saying the increased levies are regressive, hurting low- and moderate-income Kansans the most.

But Gov. Bill Graves has said the tax increase is needed to balance an already approved $4.4 billion budget for the fiscal year that starts July 1. Without House approval, Graves said he will be forced to cut $300 million from the budget.

Under that cut, higher education would be cut by eight percent, or $56.1 million, which includes cuts of $11 million at Kansas University’s Lawrence campus and $8.3 million at the KU Medical Center.

KU Provost David Shulenburger said under those kinds of cuts, the school “would not be able to operate anywhere near normal.”

Blair said if the House doesn’t approve a tax increase, higher education officials will consider a number of cost-cutting moves, including layoffs, furloughs, the elimination of summer school and cutting enrollment at graduate, medical and law schools.

Kim Wilcox, president and chief executive of the regents, said the schools may need to terminate some tenured faculty.