There are two-year budgets…and there are two-year budgets…

(Syndicated to Kansas newspapers June 24, 2013)

Martin HawverKansas lawmakers, at the request of Gov. Sam Brownback, this year passed the first two-year budget in recent history.

That means that the state has a spending plan—like it or not, talk among yourselves—for the fiscal year that starts this July 1, and for the fiscal year that starts July 1, 2014.

Now, does that seem to be a big deal? We’ll see.

The key to a two-year budget, of course, is that in its second year, we figure that the basics of operating state government and providing the services to Kansans that they want are pretty much sketched out.

There will be changes, of course, something always comes up, maybe a bridge washes out (cause for celebration in western Kansas) or we learn that the state has put more money into some program that it really needs. There will be changes, count on it.