Topeka ? Legislators, particularly conservative Republicans, could be headed for big trouble. Some of them know it, and they’re nervous.

The potential trouble is an audit due out Monday. It’s supposed to tell legislators how much additional money they need to spend on public schools to meet their duty under the Kansas Constitution to provide a suitable education to every child. Having boosted spending this year by more than 10 percent, lawmakers could face even larger increases.

Republicans, who control both legislative houses, have rejected past studies suggesting large spending increases. But the long-awaited report is being compiled by the Legislative Division of Post Audit.

GOP leaders have talked up the division, noting its national reputation for excellence, praising it as a truly independent, nonpartisan agency. They’ve said all summer and fall that they have faith in its work.

“Everybody bought into this study,” acknowledged House Speaker Doug Mays, R-Mays. “It’ll be very difficult not to abide by it.”

Legislators also convene their 2006 session on Monday, and it will be the second consecutive one in which education funding will overshadow other budget and political issues. The state now spends more than $3 billion on aid to its 300 school districts, but lawmakers will be under pressure to increase that amount.

The pressure comes from the lawsuit filed in 1999 by parents and administrators in Dodge City and Salina. The Kansas Supreme Court ruled a year ago that legislators had failed in their constitutional duty to provide adequate funding.

Legislators first approved a $142 million increase in spending. In June, the court said that amount was inadequate. Called into a special session, legislators sweetened the pot with an additional $148 million, bringing the total increase to $290 million.

The court approved, but only as an interim measure, saying it could order legislators to increase spending again – by more than $560 million a year – unless lawmakers provided data that a different figure was appropriate.

And that’s where the Division of Post Audit’s report comes in.

“I think it would be pretty difficult for us to disown it,” said Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley, D-Topeka. “They’re a division of the Kansas Legislature. That brings in even more ownership for us.”

Legislators were supposed to have ownership in a study of educational costs they commissioned in 2001, by Denver consultants Augenblick & Myers.

That study suggested changes that would cost the state an estimated $853 million annually (in 2001 dollars). The Supreme Court has accepted the study as valid, but legislators, particularly Republicans, consider it flawed.

Lawmakers also rejected numbers generated earlier this year by Dale Dennis, deputy secretary of education and the state’s acknowledged school finance expert. After surveying selected districts, Dennis suggested an increase of about $600 million a year.

It’s no surprise that many legislators resisted such figures, anticipating the huge tax increases necessary to fulfill them and the likely voter anger. Nor did it do any good for educators to argue that lawmakers would be making up for a decade of neglect.

The Division of Post Audit’s report initially offered hope, albeit slim, that legislators would have new numbers that weren’t downright awful.

But legislative leaders now acknowledge they don’t know how the report will turn out.

“It will be difficult to discredit,” said Senate Majority Leader Derek Schmidt, R-Independence. “We have a lot of confidence in the Legislative Division of Post Audit. I think their work – perhaps unlike the work of Augenblick & Myers – should be beyond questioning of its integrity.”

The Post Audit report is supposed to provide two sets of figures.

The first – so-called “inputs” figures – will tell legislators what it costs to provide the things that go into a suitable education, including instruction and equipment. The second – so-called “outputs” figures – will estimate what lawmakers must spend to ensure that all children become proficient in reading, math and other subjects.

The inputs figures are likely to be lower, and therefore favored by legislators, like Mays, who are skeptical of the need to pump a half-billion dollars or more into education.

But the outputs numbers will appeal more to attorneys who filed the lawsuit against the state six years ago. They built their case on the idea that the state’s funding formula was unfair and the amount of money provided was inadequate, because poor and minority children lag behind their peers.

Furthermore, the court suggested that legislators have to consider how well students are doing academically in determining whether the state is providing enough money to give every child a suitable education.

“Without consideration of outputs, any study conducted by Post Audit is doomed to be incomplete,” the court wrote in its June opinion. “Such outputs are necessary elements of a constitutionally adequate education.”

With the court taking such a position, legislators have reason to be nervous.

– John Hanna has covered state government and politics since 1987.