WICHITA, Kan. - I applaud the fact that the State of Kansas will be cutting back its budget by $92 million. I think that most of us were thinking, "It's about time." Knowing that our state is in such a financial crisis while watching improvements being made to the state capitol at the same time seems unethical to me. I have not agreed with most of the cuts our legislators have made up to this point.
Cutting social services and trying to balance the states budget at the expense of children, the elderly, and the disabled is disgraceful. I believe if the state of Kansas is going to make more cuts it should be to everything but schools and services to the elderly and the disabled.
When the state first started cutting its budget the non-profit agencies that carry out the duties of social services were the first to get hit. These agencies employ numerous employees. I have heard stories of many agencies laying off employees, reducing hours, and giving thought to closing their doors for good. The negative economic impact of this is real and is happening right now.
Recently the non-profit that I work for had to reduce pay, and lay off employees. When you work for a non-profit agency the pay is usually lower then in the for-profit sector. However non-profit agency employees work because they love their jobs, and not for the money. I also know that currently there are people dieing on waiting lists for funding. On the states physical disability waiver there have been at least 58 people that we know of who have died on the waiting list. We can not cut social service agencies budgets any longer.
I don't understand the resistance to a very small tax increase. In July of 2005 Sedgwick county had a half cent sales tax that lasted for 30 months to fund its new Intrust Bank Arena. As a Sedgwick county resident I did not even notice when the sales tax increased, nor did I notice when it stopped. Sedgwick County raised $206 million in that period of time. How much could be raised by a half cent sales tax in the entire state? Taxes in Kansas are not too high. It's that our tax obligations are not fairly distributed.
As for the the anti-government, anti-tax groups that believe that social services should be run by charities. These people have no idea what they are talking about. I assume they are living in some kind of dream world. Any charity will tell you that the need far out weighs the supply. Most of the charities I work with run out of money far before the end of the year. They end up spending a good chunk of the year saying "Sorry I cant help you, we are out of funds. Call back next year." Lets face facts here. Taxes are a part of living in a modern western society. They fund our schools and our roads. Taxes also fund desperately needed services for the disabled, and elderly.
I think we can all agree that this has been a dark period of time in our state. We all want our businesses to thrive and hire employees. I believe we all want to share in our responsibility to provide for our children, disabled, and elderly. We just disagree on how it should be done.
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