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July and the state's new fiscal year arrived with a new year of budget cuts.

Gov. Mark Parkinson announced Thursday what amounts to a two-percent reduction, basically across the board. A few areas were exempt - programs for people with disabilities and the state's prisons among them. He even found a way to get some dollars to keep the state's court system running. The decisions were made to keep the state from going $160 million in the hole.

Time caught up with Kansas before the economy could recover. Moving payments from one month to another and switching dollars from this account to that could only work for so long. Now, public school districts are finding ways to make up for a $39 million loss and higher education is working with $15 million less.

What do you think about how the Governor handled the situation? Should he have looked for other things to cut? State worker pay and furloughs were not part of the picture - should they have been? After all, a report out this week shows American workers' paychecks overall are smaller. (Not advocating anything, just pointing it out for the sake of discussion.) In the bigger picture, do you believe this is the end or are more cuts to come?

Get out your pen and craft your own budget solutions!