Topeka ? A plan to slash state spending and leave Kansas with nearly $83 million in the bank next year was endorsed Tuesday by a state House committee following weeks of debate.

The Appropriations Committee voted 12-10 to approve a bill that calls for spending cuts of nearly $66 million more than were sought by Republican Gov. Sam Brownback and eliminating about 2,000 vacant state jobs. The plan would spend $13.8 billion, including $6 billion in state revenues, for the fiscal year beginning July 1. The previous year’s budget was $14.7 billion.

With Kansas facing a projected $493 million budget shortfall, several House members wanted even more cuts, which was reflected in the close vote, said Rep. Kasha Kelley, an Arkansas City Republican and the committee’s vice chairwoman. The vote sends the plan to the full House, where debate could begin next week.

“I don’t know what to expect on the floor,” Kelley said. “It gives those members the opportunity to vote on something that’s close to the governor’s budget. We’re made up of a lot of individuals and we’ll see if that’s the will of the body.”

Most of the cuts and increase reserves are linked to a delay in the state’s contribution for teachers to the Kansas Public Employee Retirement System. The delay was to solve a cash-flow issue related to the state increasing special education spending in the current budget year to avoid a federal penalty.

A Senate committee finalized a separate budget plan Monday that would save the state a little more than $4 million for the next fiscal year. It also calls for a similar delay in the KPERS payment for schools to make up the special education funding.

Both budgets also cut state aid to public schools, by $232 per student in the House and $226 per student in the Senate.

Sen. Carolyn McGinn, chairwoman of the Senate Ways and Means Committee, which worked on the Senate budget bill, said she hasn’t had time to thoroughly review the House committee’s proposed budget.

However, the Sedgwick Republican said a couple items did stick out: eliminating the $5 million in subsidies that lower the cost of airfares from Wichita’s Mid-Continent Airport, which have long been seen as necessary to help businesses in that city, and slashing $5.5 million in state aid to Washburn University of Topeka.

“If everything is about jobs and the economic development, why are we going after those programs that help our work force and help our businesses compete on a level playing field?” she asked.

Legislators are nearing the end of the regular portion of the 2011 session. A three-week recess begins April 2, and while legislators are gone, a group of researchers and economists will calculate how much revenue the state could expect to collect for the remainder of the current fiscal year and all of 2012.

That figure will be the basis for the final budget bill that legislators will write and Brownback will sign by the end of May.