Topeka ? Halfway through the 2005 legislative session, Republican leaders bragged about a list of accomplishments, but Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, a Democrat, said the Legislature had done little on the major issue before them: school finance.

Sebelius has signed two bills into law since the session started Jan. 10 and noted they were both to fix mistakes from the previous session.

“What hasn’t happened is a bill to fix a mistake that has really been pending for over five years, which is the adequate and equitable funding of our schools,” Sebelius said.

The Kansas Supreme Court has given the Legislature until April 12 to increase school funding and distribute funds more fairly within the current $2.7 billion finance system. The order was prompted by a lawsuit filed by midsized school districts in 1999.

So far this session, education committees in the House and Senate have recommended approval of two different school finance proposals.

The House committee plan would increase school funding by $102 million, while the Senate committee endorsed a three-year $455 million proposal.

The plans, which may be debated this week in their respective chambers, rely on available revenue in the fiscal year that starts July 1, and then in subsequent years lack a definite source of funding.

Of the proposals, Sebelius said, “None of them follows the court’s instruction to take into account the actual cost of educating a child, and none of them are paid for.

“Each of the multi-year plans puts the state in serious financial difficulty by year two, sometimes hundreds of millions of dollars in debt.”

Education lobbyists agreed with Sebelius.

“We’ve reached the halfway point in this legislative session, and the current proposals are grossly inadequate and have no funding source. They are empty promises,” said Christy Levings, president of the Kansas National Education Assn. “This generation of Kansas children cannot wait for better days.”

Republicans had a different take on the situation.

Senate President Stephen Morris, R-Hugoton, said he believed the three-year plan provided a “framework” of increases for schools that will be accepted by the court.

“Obviously, the out years have to be funded, but we don’t know exactly how that is going to play out,” Morris said.

He has said either taxes will have to be increased or gambling expanded to produce more revenue for schools.

“We’re a long way from getting the final product,” he said.

Senate Majority Leader Derek Schmidt, R-Independence, said the Senate would have a better idea of where lawmakers stand on school finance after a full debate on the committee plan.

“This is obviously the biggest issue of the session,” he said.

House Speaker Doug Mays, R-Topeka, is sticking by his guns in opposition to a tax increase for public schools.

And he takes Sebelius to task for not providing a new school finance plan this session.

“The governor has taken herself out of the debate. We’d like to know how the governor feels aside from no, no, no, no, no,” he said.

Sebelius said she has met with lawmakers on school finance and is willing to meet more. But outside the Capitol, she urged parents, businesses and taxpayers to contact their legislators about school finance.

“There is time to come up with a real solution,” she said. “We don’t want the courts to find the solution.”