Topeka ? The next challenge facing members of the House and Senate will be reconciling competing versions of the 2012 Kansas budget, following the release of a new revenue report that shows March tax collections were roughly $19 million below expectations.

Officials pinned the shortfall mostly on income tax refunds paid to people who filed electronically who normally file later in the spring. Senate leaders expect the declines to be made up in April.

“Anytime you get a negative monthly report it’s not good news,” said Senate President Steve Morris, a Hugoton Republican. “I think there is somewhat of an extenuating circumstance in this report. Certainly not good news, but probably not as bad as it seems.”

An updated revenue forecast will be released April 15. Legislators will use those numbers to adjust the budget as reconcile differences in the House and Senate versions.

“Is it a concern? Yeah. Now if this month (April) is down it’s a great concern,” said Rep. Bill Feuerborn, a Garnett Democrat and member of the House budget negotiating team. “I think that’s why the bigger ending balance was pursued.”

Both chambers propose spending about $14 billion from all funding sources, including about $6 billion from state revenues.

However, the House creates a larger savings account at the end of the fiscal year to the sum of about $80 million. Senators are suggesting saving $8 million, a bit more than what Republican Gov. Sam Brownback proposed in January.

If state revenue collections continue to miss estimates, the Senate plan would be out of balance, requiring cuts next fiscal year. But legislators will instead make those adjustments in April, since Kansas is constitutionally prohibited from passing a budget with a deficit.

House Speaker Mike O’Neal, a Hutchinson Republican, said the March revenue numbers bolster his chamber’s budget plan, giving a cushion against another dip in the Kansas economy.

“We should be in pretty good position to compromise on a budget … we should have a healthy enough ending balance that we shouldn’t worry about making payments during the next year,” he said.

Meanwhile, lawmakers are monitoring state sales tax figures that missed the monthly estimate by $7 million and were off $9 million for the first nine months of the fiscal year.

Kansas increased the sales tax rate to 6.3 percent from 5.3 percent in 2010, which has generated more than $220 million more than through the first nine months of 2010. O’Neal said a continuation of the March decline bears monitoring.

“I think you have to figure in we lose a lot of revenue for Internet sales. Until we can get back that, our sales tax will be lower,” Feuerborn said.

O’Neal said a legislative fiscal analyst has suggested that sales taxes were lagging and could signal slower economic growth.

Senate Vice President John Vratil, a Leawood Republican who will be negotiating the budget compromise, said the two versions weren’t far apart, but there were a few areas of “glaring differences that make headlines.”

Among those could be the cut proposed for the state’s 289 school districts. Senators propose cutting the base aid per student by $226, going from $4.012 to $3,786. The House would cut the rate to $3,762, but O’Neal said other bills are in the works that would redefine at-risk students and give districts more flexibility in using reserve accounts.

Neither has passed the House, but O’Neal said they would add several hundred dollars back to the base state aid without increasing state spending.

Vratil isn’t impressed with the House interest in shifting money to mask cuts in education.

“They deal more with accounting gymnastics than they do with substantive changes in the law,” Vratil said.