Topeka ? With the days remaining in the 2006 session short and state dollars even shorter, House leaders sounded less than optimistic that the first school finance debate will produce anything significant.

The debate on the $426.7 million package – including automatic increases already in state law – is expected today as the House considers a full calendar of bills stacking up with the session nearing a key weekend deadline for action.

“We’re not sure that there’s support for any plan,” said House Speaker Doug Mays, R-Topeka. “It would be our goal to have this issue put to bed by the end of next week.”

But that would require the Senate to consider the school plan by March 31. Senators haven’t debated their $660 million, three-year plan, which has been sliding down the debate calendar as support ebbs after last week’s Senate defeat of a gambling bill.

Senate leaders said the bill to expand gambling in the state was needed to provide additional revenue in the face of a Kansas Supreme Court order for the Legislature to provide more money for education.

Legislative leaders originally negotiated three-year plans to increase school spending, but backed off those numbers once it became clear the state would quickly be in red ink absent new revenues. The plan the House will debate doesn’t change that reality.

Senate Majority Leader Derek Schmidt said he still hopes his chamber will debate school finance before legislators start their annual spring break on April 1, but he acknowledged, “I don’t know what to expect.”

“I’m very interested in seeing how the House debate goes,” said Schmidt, R-Independence. “It may be instructive on what is possible.”

That’s where leaders say it gets tricky.

The House plan provides an additional $205 million in the first year, including $75 million in automatic increases already inserted in the House’s version of the budget.

“Some look at it and say that’s too much, others say that’s too little and others say that’s about right,” said Kathe Decker, chairwoman of the House Select Committee on School Finance.

She said the concerns are based on the cost study presented by the Legislative Division of Post Audit on Jan. 9, which recommended spending increases of between $400 million and $470 million. That study was prompted last year when the court issued its school finance ruling.

Justices signed off on $290 million in spending increases for the current budget year, but called that an interim step, suggesting they would order perhaps as much as $568 million more this year, absent additional data.

Decker, R-Clay Center, said there will be a bevy of amendments offered during today’s debate, including the original three-year package. She called today’s debate “critical.”

“It’s really going to show a lot of people where others are on school finance,” Decker said. “I think some people won’t vote for it because they want to stall the process. I think something will pass, but I don’t think there is a consensus.

“Right now, I don’t want to go back to square one.”

A coalition of Democrats and moderate Republicans in previous years supported school spending increases. However, House Minority Leader Dennis McKinney, D-Greensburg, said those efforts weren’t coalescing quickly this session.

“There are people on both sides of the aisle saying that a one-year plan this far under the cost study is an invitation for the court,” McKinney said.