The Kansas Board of Regents and K-12 school administrators across the state should be steaming at the willingness of Kansas legislators to consider a tax increase to fund a new multi-year transportation plan for the state.

The state has had to cut millions of dollars from higher education and public school funding while legislators flatly refuse to even consider any tax increases or even eliminating some tax exemptions to help bolster those budgets. Now comes a group of legislators who says the state may need to find a way to increase revenue — perhaps through higher motor fuels taxes or vehicle registration fees — to help fund a new transportation plan, a multi-year plan that could cost the state as much as $10 billion.

Why are legislators willing to consider such an expenditure in the current economic climate?

“This is an investment in our state and our local districts,” said Sen. Dwayne Umbarger, R-Thayer, “and with that, there is going to be a cost.”

Just for clarification, he is referring to legislative districts, not school districts. It’s more important to bring home highways than to adequately fund public schools.

What Umbarger and others seem not to understand is that education also “is an investment in our state.” Highway construction creates jobs, but so does education. When the state is trying to fight its way out of the current economic slump, it may need some transportation improvements, but it will certainly need a well-trained work force. If legislators are willing to tack on a tax here or there to fund a transportation plan, it only makes sense for them to apply the same principle to education funding.

Cutting taxes is far more enjoyable than raising them, but it might be argued that legislators went too far in the last 15 years in granting tax exemptions. At a forum at Washburn University last week, Kansas Secretary of Revenue Joan Wagnon estimated that tax exemptions granted by the state since 1995 have cost Kansas $10.9 billion in tax revenue. Before looking at new taxes to pay for highways or anything else, legislators owe it to Kansans to thoroughly review these tax exemptions to see if they still make sense and are fairly distributed.

If Kansas legislators decide to keep all of the exemptions, their options for funding any new projects will be extremely limited, but they need to understand that a strong K-12 and higher education system is every bit as important to the long-term economic health of Kansas as new and improved highways.

We have nothing against highways, but if legislators can find the revenue for a new transportation plan, they certainly should be able to find the money to adequately fund education.