GOP plan to fix Kansas budget implodes amid pressure from educators

TOPEKA -- Republican leaders in the Kansas Senate thought they had cobbled together enough votes to pass a plan that would help fill Kansas’ budget hole.

But that plan, which would have cut more than $120 million from public schools, imploded Thursday as pressure from education activists mounted.

Once the plan “came to the light of day the emails started, the phone calls started and we started losing votes,” said Senate Vice President Jeff Longbine, an Emporia Republican.

The plan — hatched in a series of closed door meetings with GOP lawmakers over the past month — would have included budget cuts for the current fiscal year, which lasts through June. And it would have raised income taxes to put the state on stable footing in the long term. Kansas faces a roughly $1 billion budget shortfall through 2019.

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article131845749.html