Topeka ? A House committee is working on a proposal that for one year would increase K-12 education funding by $65 million in an effort to meet an April 12 deadline set by the Kansas Supreme Court to increase school funding.

A framework of the proposal was released Tuesday. It would make substantive changes in the school finance formula to reflect what Rep. Kathe Decker said was “truth in budgeting.”

One change would take additional money identified in the formula for school districts with 1,725 students or more and put it toward the base state aid per pupil. Adjustments also would be made in the calculation of funds for districts below 1,725.

The effect would be to increase the base aid to $4,107, up from the current $3,863. No district would lose funding from its current level.

“It’s basically a wash,” said Decker, R-Clay Center and chairwoman of the House Select Committee on School Finance.

The House plan would be financed by using $45 million in existing state revenues and taking $20 million from funds set aside from the state’s share of the national tobacco settlement.

Rep. Bruce Larkin of Baileyville, the ranking Democrat on the committee drafting the House plan, said the spending recognized needs identified by the courts. But he has concerns about the source of funding and provisions that would allow wealthy districts to increase spending through local property taxes.

“Some of it kind of just amounts to gimmicks. It doesn’t change anything,” Larkin said regarding changes in special enrollment funding.

House members have been working on the plan since the Legislature convened Jan. 10. A bill will be introduced today, and Decker has scheduled hearings Thursday and Friday. The full House could debate the bill as early as late next week.

The plan is the third school funding proposal to emerge in the past two weeks.

Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, who in 2004 proposed a three-year, $310 million plan financed by tax increases, said it was encouraging that plans were beginning to emerge as the deadline loomed. She has been critical of the lack of activity by legislators to address the court ruling.