Lawrence Journal-World opinion section

None of the options are good.

After the official estimators determined the state would take in about $228.6 million less in tax revenues than it had expected this year and next, Gov. Sam Brownback sent Budget Director Shawn Sullivan to a press conference to lay out the options for balancing the state budget.

First, the state needs to fill a $140 million hole in the current year’s budget by the end of the fiscal year on June 30. It’s also facing a $151 million budget gap for next year. The governor has some ideas about how to address that. None of them include revisiting the state’s business income tax exemptions that are the underlying cause of this problem.

They do include further attacks on state highways, state universities, state pension funds and the tobacco settlement fund that benefits Kansas children. If the state pursues an across-the-board spending cut, all state agencies, including K-12 education and Medicaid, would see budget cuts of 3 to 5 percent.

All three of the options Sullivan outlined would sweep $70 million this year and $115 million next year from the state highway fund, delaying all new major highway projects in the state. The three also maintain 3 percent “allotment” cuts to the state universities, resulting in a $4 million loss each year to Kansas University and $3.2 for the KU Medical Center.

Option 1, the governor’s preferred plan, also would sell off part of the state’s future income from the tobacco settlement for the next 30 years in exchange for about $158 million now. Although $42 million a year would be reserved for children’s programs, the legislation needed to raise this one-time money would abolish the system that protects those funds from being sucked up for other general fund uses in the future.

Option 2 would further delay a scheduled payment of $92 million to the Kansas Public Employees Retirement system. Option 3 is the across-the-board cut, which would make it even less likely that the Kansas Supreme Court will accept the state’s latest attempt to meet the constitutional requirement for K-12 funding.

State legislators, who face re-election this year, had given the governor significant authority to reduce state spending in hopes they wouldn’t have to tackle major budget issues this year, but those issues now have landed back in their laps. Committees began meeting Thursday to discuss the options, and the full Legislature will return to Topeka on Wednesday.

Several legislators who previously had opposed reconsideration of the business income tax exemption appeared to be softening on that issue in light of the dire revenue predictions, but the governor on Wednesday was standing firm. “I do not believe it would be useful to have a debate about raising taxes on small business or anyone else,” he said in a prepared statement.

So, when is the right time for that debate? After the state has done damage to its highways, schools and others structures that will take a generation or more to repair? Many Kansans would like to see a legislative coalition pass revisions to the business tax cuts. If the governor vetoes the plan, so be it, but legislators would be able to point to their responsible action during their upcoming election campaigns.

The state is out of acceptable options. Someone needs to stand up for the future of Kansas.