By KHI News Service, January 08, 2010
TOPEKA — A new coalition calling itself Kansans for Quality Communities has formed with the goal of preventing deeper cuts to education and social services spending.
Members of the coalition include the unions for public school teachers and state employees, the Kansas Association of School Boards, and groups that represent community mental health centers and programs that provide services to the disabled.
"Budget cuts are placing the public mental health system at a breaking point," said Mike Hammond, executive director of the Association of Community Mental Health Centers of Kansas.
Other coalition spokesmen also described programs in danger of unraveling for want of funding.
The Kansas Legislature convenes next week with the task of resolving an estimated $300 million to $350 million imbalance in the state budget. That’s after about $1 billion in spending cuts over the past year as lawmakers worked to meet the constitutional requirement of a balanced budget while state revenues shrank due to the weak economy.
With no quick end in sight to the budget crisis, coalition spokesmen held a joint press conference here Friday to announce a joint lobbying effort aimed at stopping further cuts to the services and programs they represent.
The coalition is a new wrinkle because in the past many of the member groups have essentially competed against one another for funding as lawmakers set spending priorities.
Gov. Mark Parkinson, a Democrat, has already signaled he prefers some tax increases over more cuts to schools and Medicaid service providers.
Revenue Secretary Joan Wagnon has been promoting a plan to close sales-tax exemptions that she said could increase state revenues by $200 million a year.
Coalition members said they had no specific proposal for increasing taxes but some have for weeks been endorsing the idea of closing sales-tax exemptions.