Topeka ? A compromise bill aimed at preventing cancellation of promised transportation projects cleared the Legislature and went Friday to Gov. Kathleen Sebelius.

The measure uses bonds, sales tax revenues and federal funds to shore up the state’s comprehensive transportation program, started in 1999. The votes were 121-4 in the House and 35-5 in the Senate.

“I think it’s a reasonable proposal,” Sebelius said at her weekly news conference.

Drafted by House-Senate negotiators, the measure would set aside $395 million in sales tax revenues over three years and allow the state to issue $150 million in bonds for transportation projects.

Built into the bill is an assumption that the state will receive $300 million in additional federal funds over six years. The measure authorizes an additional $60 million in bonds in case actual federal funding is smaller.

The so-called safety net provision was the only source of disagreement between the two chambers. The House version originally allowed an additional $90 million in bonds, while senators included no provision at all.

“It’ll work,” House Transportation Committee Chairman Gary Hayzlett, R-Lakin, said of the final product. “I think we’re capable of finishing the program.”

Sebelius and legislators have said they did not want the state to cancel projects it promised in 1999. They have argued the Department of Transportation would lose credibility and the state would lose good-paying construction jobs.

But Republican legislators had taken a dim view of Sebelius’ own proposal, which called for $465 million in bonds and the use of $264 million in sales tax revenues. Preferring to avoid the $465 million in debt, GOP leaders proposed the mix of funding sources that wound up in the compromise bill.

The bill would keep Kansas’ sales tax at 5.3 percent, rather than letting it drop to 5 percent in July 2006 as legislators had promised when they raised it two years ago to help balance the budget.

Transportation Secretary Deb Miller had said that unless a transportation bill were passed this year, she would have to cancel $150 million worth of projects this summer and an additional $100 million each year into 2008.

Transportation plan is SB 384.

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Kansas Legislature: http://www.kslegislature.org