Topeka ? Legislative leaders expected quick passage Friday of a bill providing $250,000 to families of any Kansas National Guard member killed in combat zones.

The bill was to be considered during the Legislature’s closing day, normally a ceremonial affair with a handful of legislators present. Senate leaders decided to use the day to push the proposal, which the House refused to consider three times.

“I don’t expect any ‘no’s’ and I expect a pretty full chamber,” Senate Majority Derek Schmidt, R-Independence, said Thursday.

House Speaker Doug Mays, R-Topeka, promised to deliver enough votes in his chamber.

“As quick as they can get it to us, we’ll do it,” he said.

The proposal, which Gov. Kathleen Sebelius expects to sign, require the state to pay $250,000 to the families of all Kansas Guard members killed in Iraq or other combat zones.

“I’ve said all along I’m very enthusiastic about it. I was sorry to watch them dilute what was, I thought, an appropriate proposal in the first place, and I’m hoping that the House kind of reconsiders their position,” Sebelius said Thursday.

The renewed push is an abrupt turnaround from earlier this month, when lawmakers agreed to pay $125,000 each to the families of two guardsmen killed in Iraq. A third guardsman died the same day the Legislature agreed to the watered-down version.

Mays said those families will receive the full $250,000. The death benefit would be in addition to any life insurance a guardsman might have had.

The smaller plan emerged from House-Senate negotiations over the state’s $11.4 billion budget to finance state government after July 1. House negotiators would agree only to the reduced amount.

During the next budget year, money for such payments will come from the state’s emergency fund. Mays says he will propose a bill during the 2006 session to make sure the $250,000 in benefits continue beyond the current budget year.

Kansas is among a few states with such benefits.

Last year, Illinois expanded death benefits to a maximum of $250,000 for families of guardsmen or other military personal killed in combat; New Mexico provides $250,000 of life insurance for guardsmen, and Massachusetts is considering a bill providing $100,000 in death benefits for families of fallen guardsmen.

There are some 7,600 Kansas Air and Army National Guard members, and about 1,400 of them are in Iraq.

On Nov. 8, 1st Sgt. Clinton Wisdom, 39, of Atchison and Sgt. Don Clary, 21, of Troy were killed in Iraq. Sgt. Derrick J. Lutters, 24, who grew up in Goodland but lived in Burlington, Co., was killed May 1.