With the holidays behind them, state legislators now will be turning their attention to the 2007 session, which opens Monday.

At this time last year, lawmakers had a school finance case pending in the Kansas Supreme Court and justices awaiting a “suitable” funding package for the state’s K-12 schools. Although lawmakers still must fulfill funding for the multiyear plan they approved last year, that issue probably won’t dominate this year’s session as it did the last.

That doesn’t mean, however, that the Legislature’s plate won’t be full.

The Kansas Board of Regents will be pushing hard to obtain funding for much-needed repairs on the state’s university campuses. Both the governor and incoming House Speaker Melvin Neufeld have said they will place high priority on funding for those repairs, but it’s uncertain how much money they want to dedicate to that purpose or how it will be spent.

Neufeld said after his selection as speaker that the plan he was contemplating wouldn’t include borrowing money or raising taxes, which means it probably would fall far short of the $727 million the Regents say they need. And Neufeld said the House plan would “probably be like the highway plan where we designate exactly what projects get funded,” a strategy that seems to open the door to considerable micromanaging and political haggling.

At least one state senator has floated the possibility of using revenue from increased casino gambling to pay for university repairs. Although gaming is commonly mentioned as a source of revenue for a variety of purposes, increased casino gambling never has gotten very far in the Legislature.

Transportation also is likely to be on the Legislature’s agenda. The state’s current $13 billion plan will run out in 2008. Last summer, the Kansas Department of Transportation released a study that said the state’s interstate highway system was in need of $515 million in the next 10 years to widen sections of the road in Kansas City and Wichita. The fact that the 864 miles of interstate highways in Kansas represents less than 1 percent of the roads maintained by KDOT offers a preview of the kind of expenditures that might be called for.

Among the bills already prefiled in the Legislature are measures to ban the use of mercury in vaccines and double the fines for speeding in school zones. These and many other issues will be played out over the next several months against a political backdrop that is likely to again feature dissension between moderate and conservative Republicans and shifting alliances that sometimes bring Democrats and moderate Republicans together on key issues.

Let the games begin.