Topeka ? A plan to issue $500 million in bonds to improve the long-term health of the state pension fund for teachers and government workers was endorsed Monday by a legislative study committee.

Backers of the plan see it as an important step toward closing a projected $2.7 billion gap between what the pension fund will collect in contributions and what it will owe retired workers over the next four decades.

The projected gap does not threaten any retirees’ pensions in the short term. In the long term, however, it will force the state to commit more dollars to pensions, rather than to aid to public schools or other programs.

The 5-4 vote by the Joint Committee on Pensions, Investments and Benefits forwards the plan to legislative leaders and Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, who have final say over whether the bonds are issued under a law enacted this year. Legislators set up multiple reviews because they wanted to be careful about a bond issue.

The plan would obligate the state to make bond payments with its general tax revenues, starting with $15.1 million in its 2005 fiscal year, which begins July 1.

Supporters of the plan cautioned that it is likely to be only part of the solution to preserving the long-term health of the Kansas Public Employees Retirement System, or KPERS.

“When you’re filling in a hole, every shovelful helps,” said Rep. John Edmonds, R-Great Bend, the committee’s chairman.

KPERS faces the gap because of a combination of factors, including investment losses in recent years. Also, a 1993 law designed to eliminate the gap is failing to do so because of faulty financial estimates, and retirees are now living longer than they previously have.

The state expects to contribute $47 million to KPERS under the current fiscal 2004 budget for government workers’ pensions, plus an additional $120 million for teachers’ pensions. That $167 million is about $100 million short of what the state needs to contribute to close the long-term gap.

This year’s law did increase the state’s contribution — but starting in fiscal 2006, and then only by $7 million that year.

The bonding plan initially received criticism because backers anticipated paying off the bonds with KPERS investment earnings, meaning KPERS had to receive a higher rate in earnings than it paid in interest on the bonds. The idea struck some legislators as risky.

There is less danger in backing the bonds with general tax revenues, but doing so could siphon money away from other uses.

The committee voted 5-4 against a proposal from Rep. Bill McCreary, R-Wellington, to back the bonds with revenues from Kansas’ share of a 1998 settlement of lawsuits between states and major tobacco companies.

State law now dedicates the money to children’s programs, and opponents of McCreary’s plan wanted to keep it that way.