Topeka ? Buried in the proposed budget before the Legislature is a plan to spend $10.85 million to remodel a controversial building the state has purchased to be the new headquarters for the Kansas Department of Transportation.

State Rep. Alan Goering, D-Medicine Lodge, said the remodeling expense is out of line, especially at a time when lawmakers are trying to fill a $700 million budget hole caused by slumping state revenues.

Goering pushed through an amendment to a House capital-improvements bill to delete the funding. Though the amendment was approved, the entire capital-improvements bill was later rejected by the House.

Lawmakers on May 1 will return to the Capitol to work on a state budget, including building expenses.

“I don’t see why we need to spend this kind of money to do this fixing up,” Goering said. “It would be nice if we had tons of money lying around. But if we can postpone some of these major expenditures during a fiscal crisis, let’s do it.”

Meanwhile, the Senate has adopted a bill that includes the authority to issue $10.85 million in bonds to upgrade the former Security Benefit Life Insurance Co. building.

The state purchased the 14-story building for about $18.5 million. The building is two blocks from the Capitol. Under the plan, the Kansas Department of Transportation will move out of the Docking Building into the former Security Benefit building in 2004. KDOT also has planned a tunnel from the building to the Capitol.

Purchase of the building by Gov. Bill Graves’ administration has been criticized in the past by some lawmakers who said the state paid too much.

A 2000 state audit questioned the process that was followed in purchasing the building and several others in downtown Topeka.

Auditors said they expected to find written documentation showing the rationale for the purchases.

“However, we found no documentation related to any cost-benefit calculations that had been performed on the proposals, nor did we find documentation of why certain proposals were rejected,” the audit said.

At the time, then-Secretary of Administration Dan Stanley said he should have kept better paper trails, but he defended his work. All the projects were selected in the state’s best interest, he said.

Joe Fritton, director of the Division of Facilities Management, said the bonds included in the budget bill would be used to make structural modifications to the building so that some floors can hold high-density storage.

The work will also entail installing a sprinkler fire-suppression system, removing asbestos and making the building compliant with laws governing access for the disabled, he said.

“There are a lot of infrastructure things that need to be upgraded,” Fritton said. He said the state would pay about $1 million per year to retire the debt on the bonds, which, according to the proposal, would be issued by the Kansas Development Finance Authority.

Last year, Gov. Bill Graves rejected a request by the Transportation Department to use general revenue funds to remodel the building. But using bonds for the improvements has been endorsed by Graves, according to his budget director, Duane Goossen.

KDOT also will need more money for furniture, though an estimate hasn’t been put together yet, officials said.

Marty Matthews, a spokesman for KDOT, said the agency purchased the Security Benefit furniture, but some floors were not furnished, and some office equipment is not compatible with what KDOT already has.

Funds for furniture will be requested during next year’s legislative session, he said.