Op-Ed

April 16, 2010

For The Hutchinson News by Kim Moore, President, United Methodist Health Ministry Fund

For more information contact Kim Moore via email or by phone at 620-662-8586

A Balanced Approach to the Kansas Budget Gap

We have enjoyed a quality of life in Kansas based on two commonly held visions which always are in some tension. One is the ideal of individual freedom in our private lives, including our economic pursuits, with a desire for limited government and strong fiscal conservatism.

The second vision is of the caring and ever-improving community. As in days gone by when people cooperated in community barn-raisings, now we work together through government, private institutions, churches, and individuals to address both individual and community needs. Those collaborative efforts assure quality educational opportunities; caring services for the aged, persons with disabilities, persons of low income, and children and youth with special needs; well-maintained roads and highways; and effective public safety and public health. In difficult economic times, the need for many of these community services does not decrease, but increases - often dramatically. The role of government in these multi-faceted undertakings cannot be filled by private charitable efforts. In virtually every case, government financial support - the pooling of our mutual resources through taxes - is the key to having sustained services.

It is clear to all of us that budgetary problems for the State of Kansas are real and substantial. On a per capita basis, the State needs $155 per Kansan (2.8 million of us) in new revenues ($433 million) if conditions don't improve in 2011-12. Although far less than the per capita need in many other states, this is a large sum for Kansans.

As a philanthropy, which has concentrated considerable funding over the past 11 years to improve the oral health of Kansans, the Health Ministry Fund has seen how the recent cuts are affecting work, which we have supported.

We have seen the elimination of critical improvements that had been made in recent years to extend Medicaid coverage providing access to oral health services for adults with disabilities and frail elderly Kansans. Already, these services are no longer available for 3,847 needy adults with disabilities and 1,038 frail elderly Kansans because of budget reductions.

This is, of course, only one example of the reality budget cuts create for thousands of Kansans - no access to relief of dental pain and other oral health problems. The cuts in state expenditures already made are showing up in reduced programs in our schools, thousands waiting on Medicaid eligibility determinations, senior citizens not able to maintain residence in their homes due to lack of community services, reduced services for persons struggling to care for family members with disabilities, and difficulties for many Medicaid providers, including long term care facilities, after 10% reductions were effected.

The issue facing the leadership of Kansas in this current fiscal crisis should be how to balance the two concepts - individual freedom and less government with the caring community and what we do together for a quality of life providing opportunity for all. This requires a balanced review of the State budget to give equal time to discussion about revenues. The current budget crisis should not be used as an excuse for opportunistic undermining of critically needed services due to a rigid ideology of less government and lower taxes.

We are a state committed to moving to the stars through our difficulties. Our historic success in Kansas has always required a pragmatic and balanced approach to critical issues. That approach is desperately needed now in dealing with the state's financial crisis.