Month: November 2014

With a projected shortfall in the Kansas budget of $278 million, Kansas Lottery officials will be looking over the budget to find areas that could be cut.

Although they have already passed their budget for this year, lottery officials will start a review of the budget to see if there are any areas where money could be saved, Lottery executive director Terry Presta told the Kansas Lottery Commission at its meeting Wednesday. He mentioned, for example, reducing the number of trips taken by agency staff.

Some lottery commissioners expressed a concern that cuts not affect the profit-making ability of the Kansas Lottery, which oversees state lottery games plus three state-owned and privately managed casinos.

Casino revenues were up about $1.1 million from September to October, lottery officials reported Wednesday. Hollywood Casino in Kansas City, Kan., reported $11,362,958 in revenues during October.

Revenues at Hollywood Casino in Kansas City, Kan., increased $607,839 from the previous month’s total; at the Kansas Star Casino in Mulvane, Kan., revenues were up $451,449 in the past month; and at the Boot Hill Casino in Dodge City, revenues climbed $32,178 since last month.

At the Hollywood Casino, the October 2014 revenues were an increase of 1.3 percent over October of last year, according to a report from the general manager of the casino to the Kansas Racing and Gaming Commission. Slots revenue increased 7.4 percent last month, according to the report. Last month, there was a 27 percent decrease in table games revenue, attributed to a lower than usual hold percentage, according to the report.

A big money-making agency for the Kansas government, the Kansas Lottery had $245.7 million in sales during fiscal year 2014 and transferred $74.3 million to the state, according to a statement on the agency’s website. The lottery paid out 56.6 percent in prizes.

In fiscal year 2014, $42.4 million went to the state’s economic development initiatives fund, $2.5 million went to the juvenile detention facilities fund, and nearly $5 million went to the correctional institutions fund. About $24.3 million went to the state’s general fund.

The Kansas Lottery has some prospects for additional revenue next year. It is trying to add another state-owned casino in southeast Kansas to the three already operating, including one in Kansas City, Kan. There is a deadline of Dec. 19 for interested companies to submit an application for a casino in southeast Kansas, according to lottery officials. However, that deadline might or might not be moved back to allow time for other boards to be put in place for the process, the commission learned on Wednesday.

While Mega Millions tickets sales have been good this year, Powerball sales have been off, according to lottery officials. The Kansas Lottery plans to add a new national lottery game, Monopoly Millionaires’ Club, in January. Missouri and several other states already are offering this game.

The Kansas Holiday Millionaire Raffle tickets boost income at the end of the year for the Kansas Lottery. The final drawing in the contest is Dec. 31.

by Sam Zeff, KCUR

This week some dire budget predictions came out of Topeka: In the next two years, Kansas may come up $1 billion short of expenses.

But that’s in the future. Right now the state has to find $278 million.

When budget experts gathered Monday, school districts all across Kansas were watching closely.

They knew if the projected budget shortfall for the rest of this fiscal year was bad, they faced potential cuts in state funding.

Not next year but this year — money already budgeted would be lost.

“We knew years ago when these tax cuts were enacted that this moment would come where we ran out of revenue,” said David Smith, chief of staff in the Kansas City, Kan., school district.

Eighty-five percent of the KCK school district’s budget is salary and benefits, and those employees are under contract.

Cutting the budget, Smith said, will be difficult.

“I’m just worried about how they’re going to solve this issue and whether or not it’s going to be on the backs of our teachers and our kids,” he said.

Duane Goossen was budget director for three Kansas governors: one Republican and two Democratic. Now he blogs about the Kansas budget.

“Just about everybody who gets any kind of money from the state budget needs to be nervous now,” he said.

School funding is in jeopardy simply because it’s the biggest chunk of the budget, Goossen said. Fifty percent of the state’s $6.4 billion budget goes to education. Another 20 percent is for Medicaid, now called KanCare.

That’s almost impossible to significantly cut because of federal regulations and existing contracts with the three private medical providers.

So if Gov. Sam Brownback and his Republican allies in the Legislature refuse to consider increasing revenue, Goossen said bad things happen to everything else, including prisons, the Highway Patrol, health programs and simply running the government.

“Doing this whole $280 million cut and not applying it at all to schools or to Medicaid would leave a huge cut for these other programs,” he said.

In fact, Goossen estimates that if the entire budget shortfall came out of that part of the budget that’s not education or KanCare, all other existing programs would take an across-the-board 15 percent cut.

The revenue estimates came out Monday, so there’s no blueprint yet about what the governor and lawmakers will do.

Eileen Hawley, Brownback’s spokesperson, wouldn’t say if funding for schools will be cut this year. She would only say Brownback plans to close the gap primarily through efficiencies and growing the economy.

“But the state is simply going to have to live within its means the same way that families all across our state do all the time,” Hawley said. “Sometimes that means some tough decisions, but we believe we’ll have a plan going forward to do that.”

Hawley also said the state has found $150 million in efficiencies, and departments are looking for more. So far the governor hasn’t provide specifics as to where those efficiencies were discovered.

But as Democrats have pointed out, by drastically cutting income taxes Brownback has pretty much decided what the state’s means are going to be.

So now the governor has a choice: He can cut the budget himself through something called allotment, or he can wait for the Legislature to return in January and include lawmakers in the decision.

Rep. Melissa Rooker, a moderate Republican from Fairway, said she’s heard a couple of encouraging things from her conservative colleagues.

After the budget estimate came out, Senate President Susan Wagle said that she might consider raising revenue.

Conservative Republican Sen. Jim Denning from Olathe said he is against raising taxes but would think about slowing the rate of future income tax cuts.

“I think if we’re willing to look at a package that does include the tax sides of things, the revenue side of things that we have the potential for protecting our schools,” Rooker said.

But there’s something else lurking in the background. A three-judge panel in Shawnee County is now considering a case about whether Kansas spends enough on K-12 education.
Using criteria approved by the state Supreme Court, that panel could come out with a decision at any time and order the Legislature to spend anything the court deems appropriate.

The KHI News Service is an editorially independent initiative of the Kansas Health Institute. It is supported in part by a variety of underwriters. The News Service is committed to timely, objective and in-depth coverage of health issues and the policy-making environment. All News Service stories and photos may be republished at no cost with proper attribution, including a link back to KHI.org when a story is reposted online. More about the News Service is at khi.org/newsservice or contact 785-233-5443.
www.khi.org/news