From community college to kindergarten, students on Whidbey Island will join their peers around the state in suffering from budget cuts ordered by the 2011 Legislature.

The exact nature of those cuts isn’t yet known. The Senate wants a 3 percent across-the-board cut, while the House has a less painful approach, but it would tap into state liquor revenues for years to come. Essentially, the House wants to borrow from the future to pay for the present. That, in part, explains how the state and federal governments got into so much financial trouble in the first place.

Whatever the nature of the cuts, they’re inevitable, like an unseen freight train coming around the corner. And they’ll come on top of several years of previous cuts that have already reduced school staff and programs.

Oak Harbor is tinkering with school start times, the length of the school day and the number of classes offered, among other ideas. Coupeville’s superintendent flatly admits layoffs and program cuts are inevitable,  or even shortening the school year. Skagit Valley College is cutting staff and eliminating class offerings in both Oak Harbor and South Whidbey.

The Legislature is helpless to plug revenue leaks with revenue enhancements because it now takes a two-thirds majority vote to raise taxes. So they have to work with the money they have and spread the pain of education cuts as evenly and fairly as they can.

Down the road, school districts will probably turn to local taxpayers to help repair the damage. Look for maintenance and operation levies calling for more teachers and programs paid by local taxes, and even special transportation levies to keep the buses running.

Taxes, like water, always run down hill, in this case to the lowly property owner who has his or her own revenue problems in this dire economy that doesn’t show many signs of getting better.

But if the local school districts do the best they can in cutting and can show the public that the results clearly will result in a poorer education for our kids, then local taxpayers may be willing to bail them out.