Higher education budget may prove tempting target

? A key legislator says higher education, already hit with spending cuts, will be an even bigger target next year when a new governor and Legislature try to write a budget.

“Those higher ed boys need to be concerned,” said state Rep. Kenny Wilk. The Lansing Republican is chairman of the House Appropriations Committee.

“They will both make a run at higher education,” Wilk predicted of Democrat Kathleen Sebelius and Republican Tim Shallenburger. The two are the main candidates to be the state’s next governor.

Sebelius and Shallenburger say they have no intention of cutting funds to higher education.

But the winner on Nov. 5 will face a state revenue shortfall of hundreds of millions of dollars.

Wilk said it would be politically unpopular to cut funding for public schools, social services or public safety. That leaves higher education a juicy target.

“I see higher education getting clipped. I’m not going to be supportive of that,” he said.

Janice DeBauge of Emporia, vice chairman of the Kansas Board of Regents, said she hoped both Sebelius and Shallenburger would see the importance of higher education to the Kansas economy.

“The state is the beneficiary of the effects and good works of higher education,” she said.

Regents officials recently met privately with the candidates to discuss their concerns. They met Sept. 12 with Sebelius and Sept. 3 with Shallenburger. Each meeting lasted about 90 minutes, DeBauge said.

“Both candidates are knowledgeable about higher education. We felt very good about being able to make our case. I think the fact that they gave us that amount of time and strong attention is an impressive comment,” she said.

Facing record deficits, lawmakers earlier this year cut some funding to higher education and recently, Gov. Bill Graves made an emergency budget cut. The total amount of the cuts was $24.3 million, or 3.4 percent of the higher-education budget, according to regents officials.

So far, those cuts have resulted in 35 layoffs and 70 vacant positions at Kansas University. In addition, higher-education officials approved tuition increases ranging from 6.4 percent to KU’s 25.2 percent.

In a recent debate in Wichita, Sebelius and Shallenburger spoke about their visions for higher education.

Sebelius said the state’s economic future depended on a trained work force and that higher-education institutions across the state must provide that training.

Shallenburger said the state needed a higher-education plan to ensure that the system was serving the needs of people who wanted to attend a post-secondary school. He said southwest Kansas was under-served, and the state needed to study getting a four-year regents institution there.