Meeting with Lawrence school board members Thursday, area legislators shied away from predicting how public school funding would fare in the 2006 Legislature.

“Everybody’s waiting on the Legislative Post Audit report,” said Sen. Marci Francisco, D-Lawrence, referring to the study of school district costs.

Francisco and Sen. Roger Pine, R-Lawrence, said efforts to require districts to spend 65 percent of their budgets on in-classroom activities are expected to fizzle in the wake of an interim study that doubted the initiative’s effectiveness.

Board member Sue Morgan pleaded with the four legislators – Pine, Francisco, Reps. Barbara Ballard, D-Lawrence, and Tom Holland, D-Baldwin – to overhaul the mandates that require school districts to set their budgets before they know how much they’ll have to spend.

“Nobody would run a business the way we’re required to run a school district,” Morgan said.