Topeka ? A conservative group based in Washington, D.C., but with Kansas corporate ties, has launched an advertising blitz that criticizes state legislators who have supported tax increases for public schools.

The radio ads and mailings by Americans for Prosperity come as the Legislature reconvenes today for a scheduled wrap-up session that is expected to focus on school spending.

Rep. Jo Ann Pottorff, R-Wichita, was one of the lawmakers targeted by the mailings.

“It’s a lot more expensive piece of mail than I could’ve done,” she quipped.

But Pottorff said the mailing twisted the facts on school funding. She said the campaign was linked to Wichita-based Koch Industries Inc., whose leaders are outspoken tax critics.

“I don’t think anybody on the board of Americans for Prosperity sent their children to public school. They were privately educated,” Pottorff said.

High-ranking Koch executive David Koch is listed as one of the founders of Americans for Prosperity and as a director of the group’s foundation.

Alan Cobb, a Topeka lobbyist and former Koch employee who now represents Americans for Prosperity, said there were 2,000 Kansans in the group.

“They are homemakers, entrepreneurs, rank-and-file Kansas citizens concerned about the economy of the state. I think they would tell you they are very supportive of public education, but tax increases are going to kill jobs and job creation,” Cobb said. He declined to name any Kansas members of Americans for Prosperity.

Cobb said he didn’t know how much the group’s anti-tax advertising campaign would cost, but he defended the content of the mailing, which said a tax increase for schools was unnecessary because state and local spending on education has increased $1.13 billion over the last decade.

But education officials said the claim was deceptive because it included increases for building construction, special education and transportation.

“None of those dollars are available for general education in the classroom,” said Mark Tallman, with the Kansas Association of School Boards.

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The education officials instead pointed to funding of base state aid per pupil as the major piece of school spending. That level, currently $3,863 per student, has not been increased in two years.

A state judge has declared the $2.6 billion school finance system unconstitutional because of underfunding, especially in districts with high minority-student populations.

Several statewide school groups have endorsed a $155 million tax increase for public schools, saying the plan would help cover increased costs that are forcing school districts to make cuts.

“It does stop the bleeding in school districts that has been on going,” Mark Desetti, with the Kansas National Education Assn., said of the plan.

The proposal by Reps. Bill Kassebaum, R-Burdick, and Cindy Neighbor, R-Shawnee, would increase the state sales tax by two-tenths of a cent and individual state income taxes by 4.5 percent.

Tallman said if the state didn’t increase taxes for schools, then schools would have to cut programs, raise local taxes and increase student fees.

In the long term, he said, helping fund schools will preserve gains made in the school system and produce a well-trained work force.

“This plan represents an investment that will help our economy,” he said.