Topeka ? On playgrounds, in classrooms, in the delivery rooms of Kansas, population is up. More children live in the Sunflower State today than ever before.

And though the number of Kansans younger than 18 has climbed to historic levels, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, it did so just as schools and state programs for child care, distressed families, early childhood education and teenagers began facing a severe budget squeeze.

Services for society’s vulnerable, often children, are being steadily trimmed.

“The simple truth is we’re in exceedingly tough times. We have a safety net that’s tattered,” said Paul Johnson, lobbyist for the Kansas Public Assistance Coalition.

Amid such change, state officials see cuts in family aid potentially coming back to haunt the state.

“It’s affecting all kids, and especially all low-income kids,” said Leadell Ediger, director of the Salina-based Kansas Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies. “I’m hoping legislators start to feel lots of pressure, because they walked away from this problem.”

Thousands more

Through the 1990s, the state added 50,000 children.

By 2000, children were still about a quarter — 712,993 — of the overall Kansas population of 2.7 million.

But the number is larger now.

“We’ve got more children than we used to have, and we have needs driven by specific characteristics of the population,” said Gary Brunk, executive director of Kansas Action for Children. “Certainly the needs are greater and the need for resources is greater than in the early 1990s.

Kansas Gov.-elect Kathleen Sebelius talks to the top readers of Edith Scheuerman Elementary third- and fourth-grade classes at Garden City Community College during a pre-inaugural tour. The Garden City stop Friday was one of six receptions around the state for Sebelius and Lt. Gov.-elect John Moore. The number of children in Kansas has reached historically high levels just as social services are being steadily cut.

“From our perspective, to meet the growing needs, more revenues are needed in Kansas, not less revenues.”

As the state added more children during the ’90s, its planned financing for children’s programs has fallen far short amid an economic downturn. Kansas schools saw students who qualify for free lunches jump by 8 percentage points this fall compared with last year.

“If you look at history, that has not happened before,” said Dale Dennis, state deputy commissioner of education.

More diversity

The new child populations vary statewide. Such variety calls for programs tailored to local needs, advocates say.

Southwest Kansas, for example, has an ethnically diverse population with needs unlike those of other western Kansas towns. It more closely resembles those of Kansas City, Kan., where a booming Hispanic population now is half the student body.

The change requires schools to assist non-English-speaking students or risk them dropping out.

Because the changes are scattered in different parts of Kansas, Brunk stresses the state would do best to respond with money for locally designed programs.

“What we need to do is not tell communities how to do things, but rather find ways for providing flexible financial support so they can tailor their responses to the actual needs of the community,” he said.

Poverty

Spaight Accelerated Magnet Elementary fourth- and fifth-graders work together on a project in Wichita. The number of Kansans under 18 has climbed to historic highs, about the same time state programs for child care, distressed families, early childhood education and schools are being cut.

One example of that is a new state effort known as Smart Start. The grant program is financed from a court settlement between Kansas and tobacco companies.

With that money, communities can train child-care workers to better educate children; they can teach at-risk parents ways to help their children; or they can use it for whatever local residents might need.

But amid state budget woes, tobacco money gradually is being diverted to general state operations.

Today, about 14 percent of Kansas children live below the federal poverty level — $16,530 for a family of two adults and two children.

State leaders face a dilemma of whether to raise taxes as the economy sputters or cut programs that might affect poor families.

One leader in layoff-plagued Wichita sees government between a rock and a hard place.

Wichita Rep. Brenda Landwehr, chairwoman of the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Children’s Issues, said working families could not afford a tax increase.

“You can’t keep going back to the taxpayer when you’re dealing with so many layoffs,” she said.

Urban vs. rural

Wichita lies in Sedgwick County, which, combined with Johnson County, holds one-third of the state’s under-18 population. Wyandotte, Shawnee and Douglas counties follow.

The urban shift in the past decade has left 27 Kansas counties with fewer than 1,000 children.

Many rural counties have fewer well-paying jobs now and, as a result, more families with declining incomes.

“I have some concerns when we cut services to families,” said Sen. Janis Lee, D-Kensington. “My concern is we’ll have families not being able to stay together.”

Lee’s rural, north-central district was hit hard by the farm economy and the out-migration of jobs and people in recent years. Several of the area’s small schools contributed to this year’s jump in the number of children who qualify for free lunch.

Budget crisis

¢ State demographic information

While the ranks of poor children grow, the state is reducing services for them.

In light of a state budget shortfall, aid to help parents pay for child care is on the chopping block.

Recent budget cuts pulled aid from 2,000 low-income families, and officials warn that more cuts will be needed if the Legislature does not increase taxes to cover them.

More uninsured children are expected as the state raises premiums for Health Wave, a state health insurance for low-income children who are not poor enough to qualify for Medicaid.

In rural areas, where doctors and dentists are few, it is especially critical.

Dale Dennis, state deputy commissioner of education, said more poor children in the school system meant more need for special services.

“Schools have so many challenges now,” Dennis said. “If children are impoverished, they often don’t have the educational advantages that other children have at home.”

While southwest Kansas is clearly affected, the rest of the state’s rural areas also struggle with fewer businesses to provide jobs and living wages.

A U.S. Commerce Department study found that rural workers today were 60 percent more likely to earn minimum wage than urban counterparts.

Service cutbacks put rural families at high risk of losing child care or other help for people who are mentally ill or have physical disabilities, Lee said.

“For children with disabilities, if your local provider closes, where else do you go? Where there might be other options in urban areas, that’s not the case in rural areas,” she said.