Wichitopekington

For the past five years, conservative blogger Earl Glynn has been keeping a watchful eye on the government through his blog Kansas Meadowlark.

He announced Tuesday in a post that he was shutting the site down and focusing on a new Kansas gadfly project Kansas Watchdog.

The site describes itself as “a project of the Flint Hills Center for Public Policy and the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity, is part of a nationwide effort to give citizens and their elected representatives solid, factual reporting on issues that matter.”

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TOPEKA – The governor on Thursday used $90 million in cuts to the state budget and various accounting maneuvers to fill a $160 million shortfall.

The move comes the day after fiscal year 2010 began and includes a 2 percent reduction to general state aid for kindergarten through 12th grade. Higher education also saw another 2 percent, or $15 million taken from its budget.

“There is no way to spin this that this is not going to create pain for them,” said Gov. Mark Parkinson, a Democrat.

The state budget has already been cut three times since January, and this time departments who had watched their money disappear previously – such as the Department of Corrections – were left untouched.

While Parkinson’s moves eliminated a further $90.6 million, he leaned on more money coming from the federal government, delayed projects and other money sources to add $69.3 million back into the budget. The proposal does not include any tax increases or delay anticipated tax decreases.

Included in that portion of the proposal is:

• $30 million in delayed road maintenance programs from the Department of Transportation

• $2.8 million taken from the Health Care Stabilization Fund,

• $4.15 million no longer needed to make Cessna bond payments.

The governor said he hoped the cuts would be enough to keep the budget in the black.

On Monday, Parkinson also said he plans to ask the State Finance Council to allow the state to borrow $700 million from its self to cover payments due in July.

Other cuts to the budget include:

• 2 percent, or $641,512, reduction to Department of Health & Environment

• 2 percent, or $132,477, cut to the School for the Blind

• 2 percent, or $196,395, cut to the School for the Deaf

• Eliminating $50,000 in grants for the Arts Commission.

Parkinson also gave his office, the lieutenant governor’s office and the Attorney General’s office 2 percent cuts totaling almost $250,000. He also asked Legislative Agencies, which include research, post audit and the Legislature to cut $540,000.

For more, read Friday’s Wichita Eagle.

TOPEKA – Wichita State University students will pay 8.5 percent more in tuition next school year, but university officials plan to offset the increase through an automatic scholarship.

The increase, approved Thursday by the Board of Regents along with tuition jumps for all state universities, is higher than the 6 percent WSU had proposed in May.

With the augmentation, a full-time in-state WSU student will pay $2,248.50 per semester for classes. The automatic scholarship, funded by federal stimuli money, will apply only to in-state students, said WSU President Donald Beggs.

University of Kansas students will pay $3,283.50 for a semester’s tuition, up 6 percent from the current $3,097.50.

KU students enrolling in the school’s compact program which guarantees the same tuition rate over four year will increase to 7 percent to $3,679.50 up from the current $3,438.75

Kansas State University tuition will increase 3.9 percent to $3,093, up from $2,977.05.

Emporia State University has a small raise to $1,713 up 4 percent from this years $1,647 rate.

Pittsburgh State University students will pay $1,826, up 6.8 percent from $1,710.

Fort Hays State University tuition will jump 7.5 percent to $1,473, up from the current $1,370.25 per semester.

TOPEKA – “Welcome to my first actual blog,” wrote Gov. Mark Parkinson yesterday.

In the post Parkinson, a Democrat, said he decided to start blogging when he became governor at the end of April “to provide you a glimpse of what it is like to serve as Governor and to give insight into what happens in our office every day.”

The blog comes up with the governor’s website.

In the mostly biographical initial offer Parkinson promised he’d be the one writing the posts, “this isn’t something that a staffer is writing to try to make me look good.”

He also promised he, and other posters, would try not to be boring or politically correct and “we’ll try not to use political speak (lots of words that say nothing, but sound good).”