Topeka ? With the Legislature only in its second day, the Senate passed a bill Tuesday to ensure there will be enough money to finance last year’s court-mandated school funding plan.

The measure earmarks $122.7 million for the funding plan’s third year – in the budget year beginning July 1, 2008. Last year, legislators approved a three-year, $466 million increase for schools, which satisfied the Kansas Supreme Court’s decree to spend more money on education. At the time, it wasn’t clear if the state would have enough money to fund the third year, but state revenues are above expectations.

The 37-1 vote sends the bill to the House, where leaders announced Monday they had their own version of legislation to do essentially the same thing.

The bill creates the “Keeping the Education Promise Trust Fund,” where the money would be placed from the surplus revenues in July and administered by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.

“The thought of this trust fund is to live up to the promises and commitments we have made,” said Senate Ways and Means Chairman Dwayne Umbarger.

The only negative vote was cast by Sen. Laura Kelly, D-Topeka, who objected to the bill being considered by the entire Senate rather than the Ways and Means Committee, of which she’s a member.

“It totally bypassed the committee process,” she said. “It’s a bit of political grandstanding.”

Umbarger, R-Thayer, said there’s a good reason to create the trust fund.

“If it remained in the expenditure column, it could end up being spent for something else, so we’ve taken it off the table,” he said.

It took the chamber about 20 minutes to bring up the bill and pass it. Ordinarily, legislation isn’t considered during the session’s opening days and when a bill does come up, it receives a first-round approval one day and a final vote on another day.