Topeka ? Gov. Kathleen Sebelius said Wednesday that she was ready to tackle the contentious issue of revamping the school finance formula.

Just hours after the close of the 2003 legislative session, Sebelius said she planned to form a group this summer to discuss education issues and come up with a school finance plan to recommend to the 2004 Legislature that meets in January.

“It’s very important that we look at the financing system across the board,” Sebelius said during a news conference.

The current formula, devised in 1992, is being challenged in state and federal court as discriminatory to minority and disadvantaged students because funding enhancements are greater in mostly white school districts.

In recent years, lawmakers often have talked about overhauling the finance formula. But because it’s a politically charged issue that could involve consolidation of school districts and tax increases to increase funding, legislators have been slow to act.

Sebelius said her current advisory panel on education issues was looking at the formula, how to make school funding more efficient and how to retain and recruit the best classroom talent.

She said she believed the state could work on the school finance formula despite a tight fiscal budget that would make it difficult to increase school funding.

“I’m a believer that it’s appropriate to look at the pipeline and where the money is channeled right now, absent the discussion of how much money should flow through the pipeline,” she said.