Topeka ? A court battle about funding for services for people with disabilities will also be fought by lawmakers during the legislative session that starts next month.

Legislative leaders voted Monday to have key budget committees review state laws that deal with funding for programs and social services for those with disabilities.

Those laws are at the center of lawsuits against the state by advocates for people with disabilities.

The lawsuits allege the state has violated state and federal laws by shortchanging reimbursements for delivery of services to people with disabilities. The law governing the reimbursements requires the state to make “reasonable and adequate” payments, according to the advocate groups.

Some lawmakers have said such legal language was too open-ended and noted that other states qualified the “reasonable and adequate” standard with what was available in the budget.

Facing a mammoth budget deficit, outgoing Gov. Bill Graves has ordered cuts that will require the Kansas Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services to slash $78 million, leaving thousands of elderly and Kansans with disabilities at risk of losing services.

The lawsuits allege the state underfunded programs to those with disabilities by $88 million in the current fiscal year and $300 million in the past seven years.

The same day state officials were decrying the need to cut services to those with disabilities, they were attacking in legal briefs the litigation aimed at increasing funds for services for the people with disabilities.

On Dec. 4, Secretary of Social and Rehabilitation Services Janet Schalansky outlined the budget cuts during a news conference, saying, “These are extremely distasteful budget cuts that we have to make and probably the hardest I’ve ever seen made in SRS.”

Just blocks away on the same day, attorneys for SRS filed a legal brief in the Shawnee County Courthouse seeking to dismiss the lawsuit filed by community groups that allege the state has shortchanged programs for those with disabilities.

The legal motion filed by the state accused the groups of trying to achieve a political agenda through litigation.

The claim is a “bald attempt to enforce their social theories,” the state asserted in a motion. No action has been taken on the lawsuit or the state’s motion to dismiss the case.

The state claims the community groups have no legal right to sue because of the state’s sovereign immunity rights. The SRS attorneys state: “The plaintiffs cannot reduce the status of the state by their rhetoric.”