Gov. Mark Parkinson hit the nail on the head with his comments regarding plans by a coalition of Kansas school districts to file a new lawsuit claiming that the state isn’t meeting its constitutional obligation to public education.

“From the outset,” Parkinson said, “I have been disappointed that any recipient of public funds would sue the state over budget reductions. We are in an unprecedented crisis, and the proper response as Kansans is to pull together and not sue each other.”

He went on to acknowledge that, even in difficult economic times, the state has an obligation to fund education at an “acceptable level.”

The state’s K-12 schools weren’t the only ones to suffer from state budget cuts this year, but the Kansas Constitution gives those schools some special standing when it declares, “The legislature shall make suitable provision for finance of the educational interests of the state.”

That phrase — “shall make suitable provision for finance” — was the schools’ basis for a lawsuit that forced major funding increases for public schools several years ago, and it presumably will be the basis for the new lawsuit they plan to file. The 72 districts involved in the lawsuit believe their action is necessary because the state hasn’t made good on the funding pledges it made to schools in response to the earlier lawsuit.

There’s no doubt that public school districts are hurting. The sales tax increase approved by legislators this year prevented an even worse situation, but districts still have been forced to make deep cuts.

The question, however, is what do school districts want state lawmakers to do?

The simple answer is “give us more money,” but do they want them to raise that money by passing additional taxes that would have a crippling effect on individual households and the state’s business community? Do they want to take more money from social service programs that support children, the elderly and Kansans with disabilities? Do they want to reduce law enforcement budgets or eliminate more of the programs that have a proven record of reducing the number of state prison inmates who commit new offenses after their release? Do they want to make further cuts in higher education budgets, probably triggering more tuition increases that make higher education unaffordable for more Kansas students?

These are just a few of the concerns the governor and state legislators have to consider when they are putting together the state budget. Maybe the school districts don’t think they did a good job, but it isn’t an easy task. During a tight economy, any budget is going to have winners and losers. If the public schools “win,” someone else is going to lose.

We certainly support K-12 public schools and hope the economy allows the state to restore funding to those schools in the very near future. However, as Parkinson noted, this seems like a time for everyone in the state “to pull together and not sue each other.”