If the only hope for salary increases for Lawrence teachers lies with legislative action to provide more funding for the coming school year, the teachers shouldn’t be holding their breath in anticipation.

Negotiators from the school district and the Lawrence Education Assn. agreed Wednesday to delay further action on teacher contracts until after the Kansas Legislature met again. There was faint hope that legislators would approve additional school funding Thursday during their formal adjournment session but that didn’t happen,

The schedule of court hearings and election politics makes it highly unlikely the Legislature will meet again or take any action before its next session begins in January 2005, and any action taken then probably wouldn’t take effect until the 2005-06 school year.

The Legislature has made it clear it sees no reason to address school funding further until the Kansas Supreme Court hears the state’s appeal of Shawnee County District Judge Terry Bullock’s ruling that the current school finance formula is unconstitutional. The court won’t hear that appeal until the week of Aug. 30, after justices return from their traditional summer vacation.

A ruling isn’t expected until at least mid-October. Unless the court orders immediate action, there’s no way legislators would meet before the November election. By that time, the next legislative session would be just around the corner, so — again barring immediate orders from the court — action on school finance probably would be deferred until January.

The hard reality that Kansas school districts might as well face now is that whatever school finance solutions the court may order or the Legislature may pass almost surely will be too late to help schools or teachers next year. Anything sooner than that certainly would be a pleasant surprise.

If money that was budgeted, but now won’t be needed, to pay increased health insurance premiums can be applied to teacher salaries, great, but unless the district can find additional cuts in its already-tight budget, there seems to be little hope of additional raises for district staff next year.