To the editor:

Now Kansas University is crying the “victim” game. The school district claims it is a “victim” of the state. Both blame the state for their financial woes.

An acquaintance not long ago was telling me that a former Lawrence teacher referred to Lawrence as the “intellectual Appalachia.” How right he was! How many of the 300 protesting state funding work for the district?

USD 497 receives more than $3,000 per student from the state, not to mention revenue from local property taxes. How many people do you know who paid $3,000 to the state in income and property taxes last year? How many families with three children paid $9,000?

Companies are given tax abatements, and then property tax to the state is reduced significantly. Kansas is in a withering financial condition. Gas and oil production is nil. Farming is nil. The population is elderly and living on nil. There is no sound economic base for the state to fund the “victim.” The state of Kansas has no money.

To these educational institutions that are now the “victims,” look at your spending habits and cut your spending. We who have funded your “intellectual Appalachia” are tired of your whining about being “victimized.”

David Holroyd,

Lawrence