To the editor:

I’d like to tell Gov.-elect Kathleen Sebelius that Kansas has concerns relating to public school funding. The two top issues for potential new employers are quality of life and schools. Parents now know how the mismanaged tax cuts over the past few years have affected the public schools. Please, no more cuts to public education.

My husband and I are to the point of advocating a two-year, quarter-cent state sales-tax increase (groceries exempt) to help fund public education.

This tax would alleviate further cuts, I hope, and provide the new administration some time to make other arrangements while refilling the cookie jar. Cut the tax in two years.

We need these funds to maintain buildings properly, keep schools open, keep the best staff on board and provide new programs if we expect our children to be successful in their vocational or academic fields.

Tax cuts should be accompanied with a contingency that could be based on real numbers instead of projections. Kansans could receive a tax cut if ample real new revenue is showing on the books. No real new revenue? Then no tax cut for that period.

No cooking of the books allowed in Kansas.

Beth Anne Mansur,

Lawrence