Editorial: Bad sign

As many observers predicted, higher education funding is increasingly in jeopardy as Kansas legislators work to bring the state budget in line with its revenues.

It appears we spoke too soon when we expressed sympathy in a recent editorial over cuts a committee in the Kansas Legislature made to Kansas State University’s budget.

When the Senate Ways and Means Committee voted to redistribute funding recommended by the Kansas Board of Regents, we noted that, while the $4.2 million cut from K-State would go to other state universities, at least the $9.4 million trimmed from the budget for Kansas University’s main campus in Lawrence would go to the KU School of Medicine in Wichita and to scholarships for medical students.

But, as noted above, we spoke too soon. Shifting that KU money to the medical school was just an intermediate step.

On Monday, the Ways and Means Committee went back to work on the bill and decided to simply eliminate the $9.4 million from KU’s budget entirely. Neither the Lawrence campus nor the medical school will get that money, according to the bill the committee approved Monday. The change was made during a last-minute meeting reportedly in an effort to gain additional support for the budget among conservative members of the Kansas House.

The committee’s plan to ignore Board of Regents’ recommendations and capriciously transfer money from one state university campus to another had drawn considerable fire as a poor policy precedent. The Senate committee now has responded to that criticism by simply eliminating the KU funding. There didn’t seem to be any particular justification for the amount that was cut. Somehow the committee had previously come up with $9.4 million as the amount needed to expand the medical school program in Wichita, so, since we no longer care about that goal, why not just cut $9.4 million?

House and Senate budget negotiations have just begun. It’s possible that the KU cut approved by the Senate committee on Monday will be reversed, but given legislators’ early lack of support for KU funding, it’s hard to be optimistic.