Topeka ? Kansas University Chancellor Robert Hemenway told lawmakers Monday that more layoffs and other cuts would be necessary under Gov. Kathleen Sebelius’ proposed budget.

“We are seriously hurting,” Hemenway told a Senate Ways and Means subcommittee. “We are not whining, and we are going about our business just as K-State is, but we are hurting.”

Committee members sounded sympathetic but said there wasn’t much they could do because of the state’s revenue problems.

“Someday, I hope we can talk about increases instead of keeping things afloat,” said Ways and Means Chairman Stephen Morris, R-Hugoton.

Hemenway, Kansas State University president Jon Wefald and Wichita State University president Donald Beggs each outlined problems besetting the universities because of the current funding downturn.

Under Sebelius’ budget plan, funding for regents universities would remain at the current level for next year. But the current level represents a reduction of 8 percent because of earlier emergency cuts and unfunded mandates. KU has seen its state appropriation drop $18.8 million.

KU has laid off 44 people and eliminated 159 positions, many of them vacant, and made other program cuts.

Sebelius’ “stand-pat” budget would mean a cut of at least $3.7 million more, Hemenway said, because of increased costs, such as higher contributions by KU for employee health insurance.

He said the cuts would be most severe at KU Medical Center, leading to layoffs, though he didn’t say when or how many.

KU already has cut its distance-learning therapy program in Pittsburg, a neonatal nursing program at the Med Center, the mathematical geology section at the Kansas Geological Survey and public access to the Museum of Anthropology.

If more revenue is not made available, Hemenway asked lawmakers to help KU by removing “costly, bureaucratic regulations imposed by the state.”

KU has long sought release from state laws that force it to go through the state bureaucracy for architectural and printing services and the disposition of surplus property. Legislation to free KU and other regents schools from these requirements is expected to be debated this session.

“In a year where you cannot give the universities much money, you could give us the ability to manage the taxpayers’ money better and leverage it further,” Hemenway said.

Hemenway also expressed concern about Sebelius’ proposal to eliminate the state’s $1 million appropriation for pediatric research. The appropriation from tobacco settlement monies was used to attract a $4 million private gift to build the Hoglund Brain Imaging Center. In addition, KU received $2.2 million in federal money.

Hemenway said KU planned to use the federal money and state appropriation to pay off the Center’s $9 million in equipment costs. Without the state appropriation, he said, “we will not be able to utilize this unique brain imaging facility to its fullest capacity.”

Earlier, Kansas State’s Wefald said the reductions to higher education were the most significant since the Great Depression in the 1930s.

State Sen. Paul Feliciano, D-Wichita, said more revenue was needed.

“We use that term ‘holding harmless.’ It’s a joke. We’re not holding anyone harmless. At some point in time, we are going to have a wake-up call for new revenue,” he said.

KSU also received more gloomy budget news on Monday when Nebraska officials proposed cuts that would eliminate a program where 25 Nebraska students attend Kansas State’s College of Veterinary Medicine. The cut could cost KSU more than $2 million in revenue, officials said.