TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) - Top Republican legislators couldn’t sell their colleagues Thursday on cuts in education spending as part of a budget-balancing package that also would have included income tax increases opposed by GOP Gov. Sam Brownback.
And the Legislature’s GOP majorities appeared split on how much to hike income taxes.
Republican leaders in the state Senate canceled debates on three bills in a budget-balancing package. One measure would have cut aid to public schools by $128 million, or $279 per student, by June 30. Another would have increased personal income taxes to raise $660 million over two years, starting in July. A third would have authorized $100 million or more in internal government borrowing.
The debate was supposed to represent a key test of the Republican-controlled Legislature’s appetite for spending cuts, tax increases and defying Brownback. Republican leaders announced the Senate would debate no legislation until members can agree on budget-balancing proposals.
“Things fell apart last night,” said Senate President Susan Wagle, a Wichita Republican.
Kansas faces a projected shortfall of about $320 million in its budget for the fiscal year that ends June 30 and total shortfall for existing programs of nearly $1.1 billion through June 2019. Kansas has struggled to balance its budget after GOP legislators heeded Brownback’s call to slash personal income taxes in 2012 and 2013 and are now rethinking some of those policies.
The budget woes have led two major ratings agencies, Moody’s and S&P Global Ratings, to downgrade the state’s credit ratings a total of three times in three years. S&P downgraded Kansas’ rating in July 2016 to AA-, among the lowest for any state, and announced Wednesday that it was lowering its credit outlook for Kansas from stable to negative.
Supporters of the education funding cuts believe most of the state’s 286 local school districts can tap reserve funds to tide themselves over, with the promise that the cuts might be restored later.
But some GOP senators said they didn’t want to cut aid to public schools so much with only a few months left in the school year. Freshman Republican Sen. Ed Berger, of Hutchinson, called the proposed education funding cuts “draconian.”
Democrats strongly opposed the cuts. Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley said GOP leaders “went too far.”
“I don’t think we need to be cutting education,” the Topeka Democrat said.
Bipartisan opposition to cutting education funding also has emerged in the House.
Meanwhile, the House Taxation Committee endorsed its own bill to increase income taxes and raise at least $920 million over two years. Republicans on the committee were split over it, with some objecting to it because it would raise the top rate to 5.45 percent from 4.6 percent.
GOP leaders also face pressure on the right from business organizations, anti-tax groups and conservative lawmakers.
Senate Democrats, not feeling that pressure, outlined a proposal to raise $1.2 billion over two years with higher income taxes. Their top rate would be 6.45 percent - what it was before the Brownback-inspired tax cuts began in 2012.
The Senate’s tax bill would have ended an income tax exemption for the profits of more than 330,000 farmers and business owners, a policy championed by Brownback as an economic stimulus. The measure also would have increased all income taxpayers’ rates, including the state’s poorest families; and would have boosted the top tax rate to 4.9 percent, from 4.6 percent.
Brownback already has said he believes the tax changes will hurt poor and middle-class families. He has proposed raising cigarette and liquor taxes and increasing annual business filing fees.
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Associated Press writer Allison Kite contributed to this report.
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