Topeka ? Nothing emerged Sunday night from a House debate on education funding, as Republican leaders allowed members to burn up a day in session with a Kansas Supreme Court deadline looming.

“What a waste of time,” Rep. Tom Sawyer, D-Wichita, said after the House adjourned.

On a voice vote, House members refused to give first-round approval to a bill containing GOP leaders’ $106 million plan. However, it wasn’t clear what the vote meant, because majority Republicans were more intent on showing their disdain for a 2002 consultants’ study than passing a bill.

That study, commissioned by legislators and conducted by a Denver firm, Augenblick & Myers, found that Kansas needed to increase its annual spending on schools by $852 million. It became the basis of a successful lawsuit against the state over school funding – and a guide for the Supreme Court in its ruling.

With little discussion, the House voted 116-0 against putting the consultants’ recommendations into effect, at an annual cost now estimated at $1 billion.

The court ordered legislators to increase school funding by an additional $143 million by July 1. The court also said that – absent a valid cost study later this year – it could order additional spending of nearly $600 million.

“This is a way to please the court and give them everything they want,” Rep. Peggy Long Mast, R-Emporia, said during a tense GOP caucus before the amendment was offered.

Another school finance plan is floating in the House, drafted by a coalition of Democrats and moderate Republicans, dubbed “Mo-Jo,” for sponsors from Morton and Johnson counties. But it didn’t come up Sunday night.

“We’ve been here five days and gained precious little ground,” House Majority Leader Clay Aurand, R-Courtland, told GOP colleagues.

The House bogged down after it rejected a constitutional amendment designed to clarify that only the Legislature can appropriate state money. Republican leaders have said the amendment was critical to preserving a separation of power and ensuring that schools open for the 2005-06 academic year in August.

Many Republicans said during the caucus that they would support a school finance package, but only if the constitutional amendment was approved first.

Speaker Doug Mays, R-Topeka, said that its passage held the key to reaching agreement on how much to increase school spending and ending the special session. But the measure failed, 70-53.

Mays was determined to continue pressing for the amendment, saying many Republicans were committed to their principles of defending powers vested to them in the constitution.

“To blow it off and say this about money is a big mistake,” Mays said.

The bipartisan coalition had resisted the temptation to offer its $149.5 million Mo-Jo plan until votes for passage were certain, and Aurand’s goal was to show that Mo-Jo was weak. Mast hoped to discredit the Augenblick & Myers study.

“We’re not here to fund Augenblick & Myers,” said Rep. Bruce Larkin, of Baileyville, the ranking Democrat on the Select Committee on School Finance. “This is not responsible. I think the people carrying the amendment know it’s not responsible.”

Larkin said it wasn’t a vote to discredit the study, adding most legislators have problems with the study and want further analysis.

Senators took Sunday off to wait for the House to pass something.

The Senate’s package was worth $161 million and enjoyed bipartisan support, making the chamber’s leaders uninterested in bargaining on a smaller plan before the House acted.

Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley, D-Topeka, said his chamber is adamant that any plan must increase the base state aid given to all districts, provide additional aid for midsize and large districts and include property tax relief.

“I doubt that we could back off those three,” Hensley said. “If not, we could lose our coalition.”

The Senate plan includes $27 million in property tax relief, which wouldn’t raise districts’ overall spending. That created questions about whether the court would accept it, but Attorney General Phill Kline said the package would comply.

Hensley said defeat of the constitutional amendment and lack of House consensus could extend the session right up to the July 1 deadline.

“It seems to me that Speaker Mays and the House Republican leaders believe propagating chaos is a better path than demonstrating leadership at this challenging time,” Hensley said.

Mays declined to respond to such criticism and suggestions that senators have done the special session’s heavy lifting so far.

“In the House, we’ll take the high road,” he said.

Added Larkin, “It might be Friday morning at 3 o’clock when we get done. I assume something passes.”