Topeka ? A Senate committee advanced Gov. Kathleen Sebelius’ plan for raising taxes to aid public schools on Thursday after deleting a proposed increase in the state property tax levy.

Key senators cautioned that the plan’s endorsement by the Assessment and Taxation Committee reflected a desire to move the bill toward Senate consideration rather than solid support for raising taxes.

“At this point it’s tough to tell if a majority support a tax increase and, if so, in what combination,” said Majority Leader Lana Oleen, R-Manhattan. “The Senate is keeping the governor’s proposal moving, as it said it would.”

The tax committee’s 4-3 vote sent the bill to the Senate Education Committee, which will now study its provisions for reforming the way the state distributes aid to school districts.

Sebelius proposed to raise taxes by about $304 million over three years. But the bill left the taxation committee with provisions that would yield only $251 million.

The Senate Education Committee could debate the bill as early as Monday, according to its chairman, Sen. Dwayne Umbarger.

“It’s on the fast track,” said Umbarger, R-Thayer.

Under the bill, the state’s 5.3 percent sales tax would rise to 5.5 percent this July, 5.6 percent in July 2005 and 5.7 percent in July 2006.

In addition, the state would impose a 5 percent surcharge on personal income taxes starting with the 2004 tax year.

The committee removed Sebelius’ proposal for raising the state’s 20-mill property tax levy for schools to 21 mills in 2005 and 22 mills in 2007. For the owner of a $100,000 home, those increases would have raised the annual property tax levy — now $184 — by $9 in 2005 and again in 2007.

Nicole Corcoran, a spokeswoman for the governor, said Sebelius had expected that legislators would make changes. As for the tax committee’s vote, she said, “We look at that as a good thing.”

Sen. Mark Buhler, who serves on the tax committee, said the bill would not have been endorsed with the property tax section. Property taxes are unpopular generally, and many cities and towns had to raise their own last year after the state withheld $86 million in aid from those jurisdictions, he said.

“I wanted to get something moving,” Buhler, R-Lawrence, said after the meeting.

The committee’s ranking Democrat, Sen Janis Lee of Kensington, said a school finance plan won’t emerge until near the end the legislative session in late April or early May.

“We’re a long ways away from there being a bill,” Lee said. “This is the first offer. It’s going to be rejected.”

Senate President Dave Kerr, R-Hutchinson, said many of his colleagues are troubled by the school finance bill because “it represents a massive tax increase, and people don’t believe that’s good for the Kansas economy.”

Kansas spends about $2.6 billion in aid to school districts each year.

But a Shawnee County judge in December declared that the state should be spending about $1 billion more and should revise the way it distributes the aid to eliminate unfairness.

Judge Terry Bullock gave the state until July to rewrite the school finance law to cure what he called its constitutional flaws.