Not in recent memory has the sine die (that’s the formal name) adjournment of the Kansas Legislature left quite so much unfinished work for state government.

In the good old — or at least the old — days, that sine die adjournment was shaking hands, wishing fellow legislators a fun and productive summer, a little vacation planning talk. The high point for many lawmakers was the lifting of the during-the-session ban on taking campaign contributions from political action committees, businesses, unions, lobbyists and such. In the old days, there were actually envelopes handed to legislators as they walked to their cars—containing those campaign contribution checks.

But after this year’s sine die last Friday, there’s a real sense that this year’s work isn’t done.

And, it isn’t.

The immediate action will be watching this month and next for the governor, through his budget director, to cut about $50 million in spending which lawmakers will read about in the local newspaper. And, these cuts are unilateral, no legislative fingerprints on them, no legislation, no debate, no conference committee action, just the governor’s office looking for places to cut state spending with the minimum political effect on Kansans.

Which Kansans? That’s what insiders are looking for…will the prosperous who may occasionally need a Highway Patrol trooper to stand by while auto club workers change a flat tire on the Interstate or who need to renew their drivers’ licenses be inconvenienced?

Or, will Kansans who generally have more money spent on them—the poor, the sick, the children, the hungry—see cuts in spending that will show up almost immediately in their lives?

Or, of course, are there things that the state hires workers to do that just aren’t that important? This could be a thoughtful pruning of services the state has traditionally provided that not many even notice. Who really cares who takes possession of the antlers of a deer shot in someone else’s wheat field? Not enough hands go up to create much shade, do they?

Surprisingly, that $50 million in administration-ordered spending cuts might just create a few waves…but chances of that happening are slim.

The larger-spectrum effect of those cuts is to create about $80 million or so of ending balance in the budget for the coming fiscal year, enough to take care of emergencies and opportunities that might occur in the upcoming year. There are times that state government, like most individuals, just needs a little pocket change—though obviously the state’s pockets are considerably larger than even those loose-fitting jeans we tend to wear as we grow older.

Now, there is that other $50 million that a panel of judges just demanded the state spend on school districts… That’s a problem, which means if the state can’t wriggle out of it, there’s another $50 million to be spent from the relatively small fiscal year 2015 carryover from Tuesday (June 30) to Wednesday (July 1) that creates. But that $50 million is owed to schools, and wriggling out of it doesn’t sound right.

So, we have the upcoming cuts, the bill owed to schools, and if both are accomplished, then there’s about $37 million left in the treasury at the end of the next fiscal year. Probably enough, but it is dependent on all those tax increases passed this session that might, or might not, produce all the money that bookkeepers predicted they would.

Sine die adjournment? How about we classify that little exercise as just a breather, not exactly the summer off, but a break while non-legislative wheels of government are spinning and providing us some interesting money-moving and sliding of funding from here to there and hoping that it’s possible for us to at least scrape through until Jan. 11, 2016, when things start again…

Syndicated by Hawver News Co. of Topeka, Martin Hawver is publisher of Hawver’s Capitol Report. To learn more about this nonpartisan statewide political news service, visit www.hawvernews.com.

It’s 10 a.m. and the sun blazes down on a patchwork of golden grain that dots the High Plains near Seguin in northwestern Kansas. A blistering southerly wind pushes the heat index to the century mark.

On this late-June morning, a roar of combines signals the latest edition of another wheat harvest. Cutting begins about this time each day and continues until midnight, or when the golden grain becomes too moist or tough to cut.

Fifteen-minute meal breaks are the only time off in a 14-hour workday. Although the days seem to last forever, technology has made life easy compared to the dusty, itchy harvests of yesteryear, when farmers sat on open-air seats and ate dust while sweat ran down their faces.

Modern combines come complete with contoured seats, soundproof cabs wrapped in tinted glass, air conditioning and stereos. Computers monitor the entire operation.

Across Kansas, farmers pilot these 12-ton machines as easily as the family car. Equipped with dual brakes, power steering and automatic transmission, these machines move through the fields at speeds of 5-miles-per-hour or more, depending on yield and field conditions. One machine can harvest more than 4,000 bushels of wheat on a good day.

Ask any farmer and he’ll tell you there’s nothing like cutting a field of wheat where the crop bunches up in the header and slows the combine to a crawl. Yields like that make farming and harvest fun.

And with crops like that, it doesn’t take long to fill up the bin. That’s when the grain cart waddles up next to the combine and 350 bushels of wheat is augured into the cart on the go.

It takes several hands to operate a harvest crew. Many producers operate one or two combines, a tractor operator pulls the grain cart and another couple helpers drive the semis, loaded with wheat, to and from the field.

There’s also usually one farmer who oversees or ramrods the wheat harvesting operation. He’s busy keeping an eye on moisture levels, making sure the machines are operating smoothly or lining up the next field to be harvested.

Farmers hate days when weather changes and the sun ducks in and out of the clouds. On such days they baby-sit the crop.

They test a field. Then move to another down the road, hoping to find wheat dry enough to harvest. No wonder farmers have been known to cuss the weather.

If and when harvest roars ahead full speed, it can be a frenzied time. Cutting the wheat and transporting this precious grain to the elevator or bin becomes the ultimate prize.

Man and machine race to beat the clock and weather. A storm with heavy rain, hail or damaging winds is every farmer’s worst nightmare and the possibility of such natural disasters is ever present during harvest.

Still, harvest is an event of beauty – the culmination of nearly nine months of growth, rejuvenation of the land and the ultimate prize – an abundant crop of golden grain. Seems like there are always moments of reflection when harvest is running smoothly, the crop is a good one and a farmer has time to stick his hands into a mound of wheat and pop a few kernels into his mouth. It’s at times like this, he’ll look out over the land he loves, where the machines are moving through clouds of dust and chaff.

“You gotta take what’s given you in this country,” they’ll think to themselves while chewing the wheat that’s by now turned to gum. “Some years, what you receive is better than others.”

A Kansas farmer takes risks that test the strength of his spirit. He faces harvest with the hope of bounty. He makes his peace with God and keeps that same peace with his neighbor. Faced with the annual trials of raising a wheat crop, this is the only way a Kansan would choose to live – with himself or anyone else.

John Schlageck, a Hoxie native, is a leading commentator on agriculture and rural Kansas.