Topeka ? Legislation removing obstacles to consolidation of school districts cleared a Senate committee Tuesday.

The Senate Education Committee endorsed and sent two bills on the topic to the full chamber for debate.

One measure would let two or more school boards discuss and vote on consolidation plans at a single joint meeting, eliminating the need to repeat the process in every affected district. Supporters said Kansas law is not clear on whether a board can take binding action when it meets outside its district.

Also endorsed was a bill extending the life of a 2002 law that lets districts complete consolidations and continue receiving their existing state aid. The state gives additional aid to its small districts, some of which hesitate to lose the extra money.

Jim Edwards, lobbyist for the Kansas Association of School Boards, said voting once for a consolidation is painful enough and that asking boards to do so at more than one meeting is requiring a great deal.

If legislators want to encourage consolidations, “it seems that removing any possible legal problems should be of great interest not only to the Legislature but also to the patrons of the districts involved,” Edwards said.

Senate Majority Leader Lana Oleen, R-Manhattan, said consolidation is a such a sensitive subject that she would prefer that state law called the process “merging” instead.

“Many times, I think the word incites, rather than excites,” she said.

The 2002 law aimed at encouraging consolidations provides that state aid for a newly consolidated district will equal the total combined aid received by the previously separate districts.

That provision was set to expire in July, however, and the bill endorsed Tuesday would extend it to July 2005.

Sen. Bill Bunten, R-Topeka, opposed the measure because the Department of Education had not determined its cost to the state.

However, Sen. Jean Schodorf, R-Wichita, said good figures are difficult to determine, noting that more districts may opt to consolidate if the bill passes.

The Kansas Association of School Boards estimated recently that nearly a dozen districts were in some stage of discussing consolidation.

Kansas has 302 school districts but will have 301 when the Ness County’s Ransom and Bazine districts consolidate in July.