Topeka ? Kansas school officials have recommended increases in public school funding for the next two years to boost teacher salaries and phase in full-day kindergarten.

The cost would be an additional $26 million in the next school year on top of a $122 million increase already approved by legislators. And the measure would require a $144 million increase in the 2009-10 school year.

The proposal by the State Board of Education will go to the Legislature, which starts its session in January.

School advocates have long sought funding for full-day kindergarten, saying a longer school day gives students more exposure to math, language arts and other activities.

Statewide, about two-thirds of kindergarten students are enrolled in full-day programs. In Lawrence, eight of the 15 public elementary schools offer full-day kindergarten.

Officials have estimated it will take about $75 million to establish full-day kindergarten in every Kansas school district.

Increasing teacher pay also has been touted by some as a way to attract more people to teaching and retain current teachers. Kansas ranks 38th in average teacher pay at $39,351 per year. The national average is $47,602.

Education Board Chairman Bill Wagnon said Wednesday that many school districts faced teacher shortages at the start of the school year because of low pay.

“We have to do something to make the profession more attractive,” said Wagnon, a Democrat from Topeka whose district includes Lawrence. “If we’re going to make progress toward moving the average teacher salary up to the national median, we are going to have to put some more money in our schools.”

Lawrence Superintendent Randy Weseman said on Wednesday that he hadn’t seen details of the plan, but he was pleased it was targeting teacher salaries and full-day kindergarten.

“If you’ve got a vehicle that will put pools of dollars specifically into a salary enhancement fund for teachers, that would be a good move by the Legislature,” he said. “It’s the same for full-day kindergarten. I think eventually that this Legislature will be funding full-day kindergarten.”

But the board’s recommendation met with mixed reaction from legislative leaders.

House Speaker Melvin Neufeld, R-Ingalls, dismissed the proposal, saying of the board, “since they’ve been guilty over a number of years of violating my rule nine, I don’t pay attention much to what they say.”

What’s rule nine? “You choose to make yourself irrelevant, I can’t save you,” he said.

When hearing that, Wagnon said simply: “The speaker is entitled to his opinion.”

Senate President Steve Morris, R-Hugoton, said he liked the idea of adopting a school budget a year in advance for the 2009-10 school year, but he said it was too early in the process to talk about funding levels.

“To me, one of the good things about the three-year plan we passed is that it gives boards the opportunity to plan ahead,” Morris said.

And Weseman agreed.

“The beauty of this has been that school districts know ahead of time what their budget is going to be, so they can actually do some planning instead of doing it after the fact – establishing your budget and then seeing how much money you have,” he said. “Try to run your life like that sometime.”

Under pressure from the Kansas Supreme Court, the Legislature in 2006 approved a three-year school finance plan that increased school funding by $466 million.

House Democratic Leader Dennis McKinney of Greensburg said it would be difficult to increase the amount already approved for the 2008-09 school year, but after that “it’s all up for negotiation.”