Although they took slightly different paths, the governor and Republican legislators have agreed to use financial sleight of hand to balance the state budget.

The budget plan revealed Thursday by Republican leaders in the Kansas Legislature takes a different path than the plan proposed by Gov. Kathleen Sebelius but accomplishes many of the same goals.

Like the Sebelius plan, it calls for no tax increases and no further cuts in education and social service funding. Also like the Sebelius plan, it accomplishes those goals by way of some fancy financial maneuvers.

Sebelius found the money to balance the budget by using a $175 million bond issue, allowing new gambling in the state and tinkering with tax deadlines and a tax amnesty program. The GOP plan has two major components:

l It would transfer state aid to local school districts on July 1 instead of June 16. That would net a one-time savings of $200 million to the state in this fiscal year.

l It would limit tax refunds to $425 million in fiscal year 2004, delaying about $60 million in refunds for two weeks into the next fiscal year, and would continue limiting tax refunds through 2005.

In many ways, the GOP plan is more palatable to Kansans because it seems less risky than the Sebelius plan. It takes advantage of one-time benefits, but it doesn’t involve borrowing money or dependence on gambling revenue.

One weakness of the GOP plan is its bottom line. Along with the savings from its two major proposals, the GOP plan also calls for an additional $18 million to be cut from the already lean budget state legislators approved last week. Where those cuts would come from is uncertain, but if education and social services are to be declared off-limits the additional cuts are bound to hit hard in other areas.

Another weakness of the GOP plan is that it leaves only $68 million in cash reserves on June 30, 2004, compared to the $175 million ending balance projected in the Sebelius budget. The governor’s first reaction when she heard the GOP figure was, “That’s not enough money.”

It’s easy, in a way, for legislators to gamble on a small ending balance, because it won’t be their problem to solve if it turns out not to be sufficient. By the time the state knows its treasury is empty and budgets will have to be cut, the Legislature will have gone home, leaving the governor to make the unpopular decisions that would be required to meet the state’s financial obligations.

The good news is that the Democratic governor and Republican legislators seem close to being on the same page about their budget goals and may find it relatively easy to reach a budget compromise. The bad news is that neither budget is going to offer the state much room for error and certainly isn’t going to provide funds to enhance or expand education, economic development or any other program that will be important to the state’s economic future.

Either way, it’s a Band-Aid approach. The governor and the Legislature both are willing to tape the budget together and try to make do rather than to make an investment in the state’s future. It remains to be seen whether their gamble will work.