Times are tough, and just about every individual and company in Kansas is looking at budget cuts, but it’s time for Kansas legislators to take a look at the other side of the ledger.

Kansas Senate and House committees, meeting in advance of the full Legislature’s return next Wednesday, have agreed to additional deep cuts in K-12 education and higher education budgets. Funding must not drop below a set level if the state is to qualify for federal stimulus funds, and legislators reportedly are attempting to calculate that amount to the penny to make sure the requirements are met, but just barely.

According to plans endorsed by House and Senate committees, higher education funding would drop below the level the Kansas Board of Regents has said is needed to allow for a freeze in in-state tuition next year. Base state aid to K-12 public schools would drop by an additional $70 per pupil in the Senate proposal and $117 per pupil in the House plan. Additional cuts are included for state agencies and social service programs.

The cuts are going deep, perhaps too deep. The Senate Ways and Means Committee has acknowledged that fact by starting to look at “revenue enhancements,” but the House Appropriations Committee continues to resist that strategy. The Senate committee is sponsoring legislation that would suspend the phaseout of the state estate and corporate franchise taxes and “decouple” the state’s tax code from the federal code to boost state revenues in the short term.

To help balance the budget, the Senate plan also taps into projected gambling revenue, which is a little risky at this point, and takes the convenient but wrong step of diverting money, like liquor tax revenue, that was promised to cities and counties to the state budget. This is not finding new revenue for the state; it is stealing money from local governments who need it at least as badly as the state does.

The Senate revenue enhancements may not be perfect, but they are something the House must at least consider. During the administration of Gov. Bill Graves, legislators went on a tax-cutting spree that many observers believed went too far. The state got by on that strategy as long as times were good, but lawmakers knew, or should have known, that the depth of those cuts would put state finances in jeopardy if the economy faltered.

That has happened, and the state now must pay the piper. Legislators already have worked to balance the budget on the backs of Kansas school children, social service funding, local units of government and perhaps Kansas families trying to pay university tuition. It’s time to look at some modest revenue measures to reduce the need for further cuts.