Topeka ? Deferred maintenance at Kansas Board of Regents universities likely will be deferred again.

Legislative leaders Monday remained at odds over how to address $663 million worth of repairs at Kansas University and the five other regents schools.

That means lawmakers may take up the issue again when the Legislature comes back April 25 for a scheduled three-day wrap-up session, sometimes called the omnibus session.

“I’m hoping that between now and omnibus, hopefully we’ll have a pretty good deferred maintenance package put together,” said Sen. Dwayne Umbarger, R-Thayer, and chairman of the Senate Ways and Means Committee.

Legislative leaders said they hoped to adjourn the session today before taking a three-week break.

Key lawmakers started the session in January touting “crumbling classrooms” as one of the top priorities of the 2007 session.

But finding politically palpable ways of paying for the immense expense has proven tough.

Proposals to increase taxes, turnpike tolls and tuition all have been floated and shot down.

Last week’s passage of legislation to expand gambling and dedicate some of the profits to infrastructure improvements was seen as a way by higher education officials to help pay for the repairs.

But state Rep. Sharon Schwartz, R-Washington, chair of the House Appropriations Committee, said the regents’ support of the gambling bill may have taken the heat off the Legislature.

“If the regents think gaming is adequate,” then perhaps no more needs to be done on deferred maintenance, she said.

But Umbarger said he didn’t believe additional gambling revenue would address “all their concerns.”