House and Senate budget committees are scheduled to begin work this week on school finance bills that would respond to a recent Supreme Court order to increase funding for poor school districts.

But with three very different bills on the table, and with only one week remaining in the 2014 regular session, it now appears likely that a final deal will not be reached until lawmakers return for their final wrap-up session in late April.

Gov. Sam Brownback, however, is optimistic the issue can be resolved before the Legislature adjourns on Friday.

“Over the past two weeks there is nothing I have invested more time and effort into than bringing legislators together on a solution on school funding,” Brownback said in an email statement. “I believe we are very close to putting in place a process to resolve this matter by the end of next week.”

The Supreme Court gave lawmakers until July 1 to address disparities in what’s called “equalization aid” — money the state spends to subsidize capital outlay and local option budgets for less wealthy districts. Those disparities were caused by budget cuts enacted in the wake of the Great Recession beginning in 2009.

Restoring full funding of the so-called “equalization aid” would cost an estimated $129 million, a little more than half of the state’s projected ending balance for next year.

All three plans being considered this week are being introduced by Republican leaders in the House and Senate. A fourth, introduced by House Democratic Leader Paul Davis, who is running for governor, has not been set for a hearing.

Davis’ bill would restore the $129 million, but it offers no other spending cuts or revenue increases to pay for it.

“We’re proposing to take it out of the ending balance,” Davis said. “The court has given us until July 1, and I think we’re going to have to look to long-term issues eventually, but the most important thing in the short term is to look at the equalization issues and deal with this as quickly as possible.”

The three Republican plans, by contrast, would partially pay for the increase with cuts from other parts of the education budget, most notably in transportation aid to school districts. All three proposals change the formula used to calculate transportation aid along the lines recommended in a 2006 Legislative Post Audit report.

That would reduce transportation aid by $14.8 million statewide, including nearly $190,000 from the Lawrence school district, according to the Kansas State Department of Education.

Lawrence Superintendent Rick Doll said that would be hard to absorb because the district currently only buses students who are required by law to receive transportation: those who live at least 2.5 miles away from their school, special education students and English language learners.

“There’s no low-hanging fruit,” Doll said.

He added that the district could try to reduce the number of bus routes, which would lengthen each remaining route and put more students on each bus. But the district already went through that process when the state cut education funding four years ago, and Doll said he doubts if much could be saved by doing that again.

The only other way to absorb that cut, he said, would be to take money out of the district’s general fund. The estimated $190,000 that would be cut, he said, is slightly more than the cost of three teachers.

On Monday, the House Appropriations Committee opens two days of hearings on its bill, which would fully fund the $129 million in equalization aid. But in addition to the transportation cut, it contains language from other bills that would lower the standard for licensing certain types of teachers and expand the number of districts that can exempt themselves from most state laws and regulations through the “public innovative school district” program.

The Kansas State Board of Education has twice asked for an attorney general’s opinion about whether that program is constitutional, but Attorney General Derek Schmidt’s office has said it will not respond until the school finance litigation is resolved.

Later in the week, the Senate Ways and Means Committee will open hearings on two proposals, neither of which has yet been drafted in the form of a bill.

One, championed by Senate President Susan Wagle and other Senate GOP leaders, would cut transportation aid along with funding for virtual education, certain kinds of funding that target students at risk of failing or dropping out. But it would also allow districts to increase their local option budgets, from a maximum of 31 percent of their base state funding to 33 percent, subject to voter approval.

The net effect of that bill in Lawrence would be a cut of $1.8 million, even if the district increased its local option budget.

The other Senate proposal, offered by Ways and Means chairman Sen. Ty Masterson, R-Andover, is similar to the leadership bill. It would cut at-risk funding by 10 percent. The net effect of that bill in the Lawrence district would be an increase of $327,000 in spending authority.