Topeka ? A program that supporters say would help thousands of low- and middle-income Kansans achieve the dream of home ownership is bottled up in the Legislature because of one man — House Speaker Doug Mays.

The program would allow the Kansas Development Finance Authority to issue tax-exempt bonds to assist low- and middle-income home buyers by providing low-interest loans and help with down payments. The loans would be originated by participating private mortgage lenders and available to first-time home buyers or people who haven’t owned a home in the previous three years.

Kansas is the only state in the nation that doesn’t provide a statewide mortgage revenue bond program.

Without such a program, Kansas “is unable to assist its citizens to the fullest extent in the extremely valuable pursuit of home ownership,” said Stephen Weatherford, president of the finance authority.

The measure, which has been worked on for two years, gained approval in the Senate and a House committee, but has been sitting on the calendar of the full House for a month.

When the Legislature ended the main part of its session April 2, Mays, a Topeka Republican, said he still didn’t like the legislation.

“Many of us believe it doesn’t do what it has been billed,” he said. “We would like to see a bill that helps low-income individuals with home ownership, not middle and upper-income. With houses up to $250,000, I just don’t think that’s a good use of the money.”

Weatherford said Mays was talking about the upper limits of the proposed program.

Federal requirements say the limit of the home price must be the average sale price of a home in that area, he said. In some areas of Johnson County, that would price would be about $250,000, he said.

But Weatherford said experience in other states showed that expensive homes were not the ones being bought under mortgage revenue programs. In 2003, the national average purchase price of a home with mortgage revenue bonds was $89,500, and the average income of the borrower was $36,235, he said.

Since the bill has been in the legislative hopper, a steady stream of bankers, community housing officials, religious groups, home builders and Realtors have testified in favor of the proposal, saying that a statewide mortgage revenue bond program could become an important tool for first-time home buyers.

But Capitol Federal Savings of Topeka has opposed the bill, saying it would provide money to borrowers who cannot afford a mortgage.

Supporters of the bill, however, say the success of mortgage revenue programs in other states speaks for itself.

The bill is Senate Bill 222.