Topeka ? Lower taxes, higher tuition, and using tax dollars to send students to private schools are among some of the recommendations that have been made in the past by Gov.-elect Sam Brownback’s choice to be the state’s top budget official.

Steve Anderson, a certified public accountant from Edmond, Okla., was named Wednesday as the new state budget director.

The state budget director works for the governor and puts together a budget proposal for the governor and Legislature to consider. Brownback, a Republican, will be sworn into office Jan. 10, and his proposed budget will be delivered shortly afterward.

Anderson has been working as a consultant for the past several years with Americans for Prosperity, an organization founded by billionaire David Koch, which espouses cuts in taxes, regulations and the size of government.

Earlier this year, Anderson and the Kansas chapter of Americans for Prosperity proposed what it called a “model budget” for the state of Kansas.

In that document, AFP said the biggest problem with the budget is “unconstrained growth of state spending.”

The “model budget” calls for a cut in the state income tax, cuts in state spending, including Medicaid, and a voucher program where tax dollars would be used to pay tuition for students to attend private schools. The plan also called for a program to allow tax credits for donations to scholarship funds for low-income children to attend private schools.

The plan also recommended higher tuition at public universities and schools. “There is no reason to tax the majority in the state who do not have children attending a state institution in order to subsidize those who do, especially when there is evidence it is the more affluent citizens who are more likely to have children enrolled in higher education,” the document said.

The plan also said the government pension system should be changed to a 401 (k) type system, and called for more privatizing of government functions, such as prisons.