A state audit indicating that state university faculty members are teaching fewer students than they were 20 years ago while reaping salary increases that exceed the inflation rate is “flawed,” according to a Kansas Board of Regents official, and presents an “incomplete picture,” according to a Kansas University leader.

If that’s the case, university officials should waste no time in filling in that picture and pointing out those flaws. The audit released this week is exactly what anti-tax members of the Kansas Legislature were waiting for to prove their point that university faculty are being paid plenty for the work they do.

KU was one of only two state universities in which the average number of students taught by full-time faculty members had increased, but that isn’t likely to save it from the broad anti-funding brush that will be wielded by many legislators. In their minds, the audit only proves the point they have been making for years: that faculty salaries are fine and there still is fat to be cut in state university budgets.

Officials were quick to point out that KU faculty salaries still are at 86 percent of those at peer schools around the country and that lawmakers shouldn’t compare one state university to another in the audit because teaching loads may be affected by the amount of research being conducted at some schools.

That’s all true, but chances are good that many state legislators aren’t going to get past the bottom line issue of more salary, fewer students. When it comes to shifting that perception among legislators, university officials across the state clearly have their work cut out for them.