FRANKFORT — State funding to public schools will have to be cut by $14 million this year because of unforeseen costs, especially in student transportation, Education Commissioner Gene Wilhoit said Thursday.

        The cut would be about 1 percent of total funding. It will amount to about $23 per student in average daily attendance, Mr. Wilhoit and a top aide told a House subcommittee that deals with the education budget.

        The news did not end there. Mr. Wilhoit and Kyna Koch, an associate commissioner who is a school finance specialist, said Gov. Paul Patton's education budget for the next two years was based on some of the same assumptions that now have fallen through.

        Ms. Koch said it is likely that school districts would have to make further cuts in each of those years. Other officials said districts are in a bind already.

        “A lot of schools have already worked their budgets and are pretty much depending on this money,” said Rep. Charlie Miller, who is a high school principal in Jefferson County.

        Oldham County School Superintendent Blake Haselton said districts will have to dip into reserve funds. But most of those reserves in his district have been earmarked for building projects, said Mr. Haselton, who was attending the subcommittee meeting.

        The state funds schools according to a complex formula that requires Mr. Wilhoit's department to project, two years in advance, school enrollment totals, transportation costs, the number of students in special education, local property values and tax rates, among other things.

        The funding predicament is peculiar because no money is being lost this year. In fact, money will be left over — $20 million in all.

        However, the surplus was expected to be $34 million, and schools usually get to keep any surplus. But Mr. Patton took $34 million from education to balance his current budget.

        Meanwhile, actual school operating costs have been $14 million over projections, half of that for transportation, which Mr. Wilhoit said might be due to a sudden, sharp increase in fuel prices.

        The immediate effect is that schools will have to scrape up the $14 million difference on their own. The longer-term problem is that Mr. Patton's two-year education budget was based on faulty numbers.

        Mr. Miller said the money shortage might be an argument for expanded gambling.

        “I guess what we're going to have to do is put slot machines in” at race tracks, Mr. Miller said.

        “Something's going to have to be done for schools,” Mr. Miller said. Otherwise, “there's going to have to be a lot of good programs cut from these school systems and there's going to be a lot of people losing jobs.”

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