Kansas courts may still furlough workers, close doors extra days, despite budget rescue plan

Plan may not stop furloughs in Kansas courts

TOPEKA, Kan. — Kansas courts may still close extra days and furlough workers with the additional dollars promised by a proposal that legislators are considering, a judicial branch spokesman said Thursday.

Spokesman Ron Keefover said officials are still calculating how many unpaid days off workers could avoid if the courts receive the extra $5 million under consideration. The Senate expects to have a debate next week on a bill containing the funds.

The Kansas Supreme Court, which administers the judicial branch, already has a plan to furlough court employees, other than judges, up to 30 days. The judicial branch estimates it has an $8 million budget shortfall and would impose furloughs between Feb. 15 and June 15, a week at a time for all courthouses.

Numbers-crunching by judicial branch officials came as lawmakers debated how to cut the Legislature’s own spending and as a House committee heard from supporters of Gov. Mark Parkinson’s plan to increase the state’s sales tax.

The Democratic governor and Republican-controlled Legislature must revise the current budget to keep it balanced, then avert a projected shortfall of nearly $400 million for the fiscal year beginning July 1.

The additional $5 million for the courts would be part of a larger bill revising the current budget. The Senate Ways and Means Committee endorsed the measure Wednesday.

Keefover said courts already have imposed hiring freezes, and district courts in at least 33 of the state’s 105 counties are closing early each day so clerks can catch up on paperwork.

“It already has taken its toll,” Keefover said of the budget crisis. “Certainly, justice will be delayed.”

Almost all of the judicial branch’s $113 million budget covers wages and salaries for its employees. Also, the state constitution prohibits a cut in judges’ pay during their current terms unless pay for all salaried state officials is cut.

Budget Director Duane Goossen said Parkinson understands the additional $5 million probably won’t make the courts whole, but “they have not been cut harder than anybody else — if anything, it’s probably a little less.”

House Appropriations Committee Chairman Kevin Yoder suggested the Supreme Court has alternatives to closing courthouses for a week at a time, which he said seems designed “to drive constituent complaints” to legislators.

“Our goal is to ensure that access to the courts available throughout the state, every day of the week,” said Yoder, an Overland Park Republican.

Keefover said: “If someone comes up with a different plan, the Supreme Court is receptive to looking at it.”

Meanwhile, Republican leaders in the House and Senate were pursuing different proposals for cutting legislative spending.

House Speaker Mike O’Neal said his chamber wants legislators to work three days without pay, then have their daily salaries and expense payments cut. Those changes would save $271,000.

The Senate Ways and Means Committee’s budget bill reduces the legislative budget by $1.6 million, although mostly without specifying where the cuts would be made. That’s far less cutting than Parkinson had suggested.

Finally, the House Taxation Committee took up the biggest part of Parkinson’s plan for closing the projected shortfall for the next fiscal year. It’s a bill that would raise the sales tax from 5.3 percent to 6.3 percent for three years.

Goossen told the committee that higher taxes are necessary to avoid crippling cuts across state government during the next fiscal year. Educators and advocates for the elderly and disabled echoed those sentiments.

The committee is scheduled to hear from opponents of the proposal Tuesday. Chairman Richard Carlson, a St. Marys Republican, said the committee will discuss it within a week after that.