Wichita ? Kansas Highway Patrol officials plan to ask the Legislature when it convenes next month to spend more than $4 million on a new Troop F headquarters in Wichita.

When they do, they’ll have the backing of Rep. Steve Brunk, a Bel Aire Republican whose district includes Wichita.

“For 21 years they’ve been after a new headquarters, and they’ve been turned down 21 years in a row,” Brunk said. “They desperately need this, and I’ve decided to take up the cause.”

The 2012 Legislature will be facing tight budget challenges, but Brunk said he will be looking for ways to make the financing work.

The Wichita Eagle reported that the current 60-by-65-foot headquarters has an unsecured reception area, houses a backup dispatch center, a motorist assist office and a room where Kansas vehicle inspections are processed but the building is not big enough to hold training sessions or full staff meetings. Neither is the patrol’s satellite office across town.

“The facilities over there are frankly way undersized,” Brunk said of the current headquarters. “They’ve got file cabinets stacked up in the hallways. There are three desks stacked together in the dispatch area.”

The lack of space can be a problem, especially after troopers seize large amounts of drugs or weapons during traffic stops. That was the case in November 2000, when a trooper found a tanker truck loaded with duffel bags full of marijuana near Goddard.

Since there was not enough room 14 miles away at the Wichita facility to store the 3,383 pounds of evidence, troopers ended up driving the truck 100 miles away to Salina and storing the marijuana there while the truck driver awaited trial.

That’s not an everyday occurrence, but Wichita-area troopers still occasionally make the 90-mile trip to Salina with large amounts of evidence.

Highway Patrol officials are hoping the state can build the new center on state-owned land near Kansas 254 and Rock Road for a little more than $4 million. Other state agencies, including the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, also could use some of the office space.

Troop F serves Sedgwick and 12 other south-central Kansas counties.