As the net is cast ever wider to capture new revenue to support higher education in Kansas, cities may be called upon to chip in with a sales tax levy to assist the state universities within their borders.

It’s not the first time such a move has been suggested, but it resurfaced this week when the Kansas Board of Regents released a report on higher education funding. Lawrence residents will be glad to hear that Kansas University Chancellor Robert Hemenway is cool to the sales tax idea.

As the chancellor told the Journal-World, levying a local sales tax would allow the state to further shirk its responsibility for supporting state universities. The state already is doing a pretty good job of shifting that responsibility through tuition increases and other measures. The report released this week cited data showing that state support for higher education had declined from 16.3 percent of the state budget in 1990 to just 11.8 percent in 2002.

It’s obvious that cities like Lawrence benefit greatly by serving as home to a state university. In addition to the jobs, people, cultural opportunities and other benefits KU brings to Lawrence, there are a host of intangibles that make a university city an energizing and pleasant place in which to live.

It’s also true, however, that university host cities already contribute in many ways to supporting their universities. Although the university has some of its own law enforcement personnel, Lawrence has considerable responsibility for police and fire protection for the campus, as well as for KU students when they are elsewhere in the city. University students and faculty also use city streets, sewers and water facilities, even though KU property is exempt from local property taxes.

The juxtaposition of the sales tax suggestion with current discussion of a city/university zoning agreement in Lawrence also is notable. Although everyone knows Lawrence simply wouldn’t be Lawrence without KU, having a growing university in the center of the city creates certain tensions between city and university interests that are the subject of ongoing negotiation.

The study notes that Washburn University and Wichita State University already receive local sales tax revenue. Their situation is different than KU’s, however, in that both were founded by cities as municipal universities that later received state support — WSU as a full member of the Regents system and Washburn through sizable Regents subsidies.

The bottom line of this discussion is that the state’s system of higher education shouldn’t have to rely on patchwork funding and ever-increasing tuition to fund its basic operations. State universities contribute immeasurably to the state’s economic well-being by providing both the knowledge and work force to support business and the state’s quality of life.

Shouldn’t it be a basic and primary function of state government to support that mission?