Kansas Health Institute | Information For Policy Makers. Health for Kansans.

TOPEKA — In an unusual move, the governor today appeared before a group of advocates and managers of various social service programs and urged them to press legislators to vote for tax increases.

Without new tax revenue, he said, another $400 million likely must be cut from the state budget and that would be devastating to education, public safety and the state’s social service safety net.

“At the end of the day it all has to add up and the only way it adds up is with new revenue,” Gov. Mark Parkinson told a group of about 70 people, most of who were there on behalf of groups that rely heavily on state social services spending.

Parkinson said the state has already cut about $1 billion in spending over the past two years and that deeper cuts would mean serious harm to people and programs.

Spontaneous combustion

“All that leaves is taxes,” he said, “and nobody wants to say taxes. It’s like they’ll spontaneously combust. But you need to tell your legislators: We need you to step up and get back some of the tax cuts we’ve done over the past 10 years.

“The conventional wisdom is you can’t vote for a tax increase in an election year,” Parkinson said, “but I can’t come up with the name of a single legislator who ever voted for a tax increase and lost.”

Parkinson, a Democrat, has said he will not seek election this year.

In November, Parkinson ordered a 10 percent reduction in the Medicaid reimbursement rates that for many of the stakeholders is financial lifeblood.

Parkinson began his remarks to the group describing why he made the “unfortunate decision.”

It was necessary, he said, because the state was running out of money as a result of “probably the worst recession since the Great Depression.”

For the first time since good records have been kept, the state was facing multiple years of declining revenues and there is no clear end in sight to the downward spiral.

“We are in uncharted territory,” Parkinson said.

He told the audience that it was “incredibly important” that the Medicaid cuts he had ordered be reversed for fiscal year 2011, which begins July 1. “And the only way we can do that is with more revenues.”

The governor urged the crowd to help him make the case for more taxes.

Human terms

“Talk with your local media and legislators,” he said. “It’s very important to get that story out. But I think the American and Kansas public has become immune to numbers…so, tell the story in human terms...and send a very specific message to legislators.”

Shannon Jones, executive director of the Statewide Independent Living Council of Kansas, which advocates for the physically disabled, said she had been regularly attending SRS stakeholder meetings for the past 16 years but had never seen a governor show up to talk to the group, which routinely gathers to hear rules changes and budget issues described by top SRS officials.

“I applaud him for having the courage to take the bullet,” Jones said of the governor’s call for a tax increase.

As for the Medicaid cuts he had ordered: “It’s a pretty somber mood,” she said. “But I thought it was very upright of him to deliver the message personally.”

Parkinson spoke for about 15 minutes and then left without taking questions.

Secretary Don Jordan spoke before and after the governor and later fielded questions from members of the audience and those participating via telephone.

The governor’s remarks drew varied reaction from audience members interviewed by KHI News Service.

“I think it was sobering,” said Michael Leeson of Kansas Health Solutions, an SRS contractor. “It certainly will be interesting to see what the Legislature does.”

Senate Republican leaders said last week that they agreed some new taxes will be needed to balance the budget. House GOP leaders have repeatedly said the state is still overspending and more cuts must be made. House members are up for election this year.

Gail Kozadd of Kansas Children’s Service League, an SRS contractor that provides counseling and other services to troubled families said, “unfortunately, that’s where we are as a state.”

She predicted more families would be left to fend for themselves, regardless their problems or resources.

“If we don’t get new revenues, where do we bury the bodies,” said Jones. “We’ve had 50 people die (while waiting for services) on the physically disabled waiting list.”

Jones said she didn’t think legislators were quite ready to agree to tax increases.

“I think it’s going to take a while,” she said, noting that lawmakers last week were “inundated” by e-mail messages triggered by the Web site for Americans for Prosperity-Kansas, an anti-tax group.

An e-mail to legislators responding to that e-mail wave was sent Monday morning, she said, by a coalition supportive of the governor’s call for new taxes.

“AFP had their message Friday,” she said, “and the advocates for real people had their response today. We have been and are doing exactly what the governor recommended.”

Jones was among those who testified last week before the House Taxation Committee in favor of the governor’s call for increasing the state sales tax a penny to 6.3 cents. He also has called for raising tobacco taxes.

Opponents of the tax increases are scheduled to testify to the committee on Tuesday.