Topeka ? With 40 percent of the Kansas National Guard expected to be deployed overseas by year’s end, Gov. Kathleen Sebelius said the state needed to ensure soldiers and their families were treated properly.

“We’re looking at a whole package of initiatives to bring to the Legislature,” the governor said Friday.

Sebelius didn’t provide any details, but after a recent deployment ceremony she said her administration was considering a proposal to help deployed guardsmen who were also state employees by making up the difference between their military pay and state salary.

Twenty-six states already do that, according to the National Governors Assn.

During the last legislative session, Kansas adopted laws that waived hunting, fishing and state park fees for Guard members.

Nationwide, states have enacted numerous proposals to support National Guard and reservists and their families through various benefits and programs.

Those include education benefits, family support, tax breaks, state employee benefits and even foreclosure protection for families. North Carolina has provided assistance to guardsmen in Iraq by supplying them with radios, body armor and computers.

There are 5,400 citizen-soldiers in the Kansas Army National Guard and 2,200 airmen in the Kansas Air National Guard, making the Kansas National Guard the fifth-largest employer in the state, officials said.

About 1,800 guard soldiers or airmen are serving or being mobilized for duty in Iraq, Afghanistan and Kosovo as well as locations in the United States.