Topeka ? Kansas lawmakers adjourned the 2015 regular session Thursday without acting on a budget deal that House and Senate negotiators had brokered a day earlier.

And while Republican leaders said they still believe it can pass when they return for the final wrap-up session in late April, others said the deal faces a number of serious obstacles, including the need to raise hundreds of millions of dollars in new taxes in order to fund it.

House and senate budget negotiators reached a tentative deal Wednesday on a two-year state budget, but neither chamber acted on it before adjourning Thursday for the Legislature's annual spring break. Rep. Ron Ryckman, Jr., center left, and Sen. Ty Masterson, center right, say they're confident the bill can pass when lawmakers return in late April.

“First and foremost, it’s not balanced,” said Sen. Laura Kelly, D-Topeka, the ranking minority member on the Senate Ways and Means Committee. “They are spending money that we don’t have, or they are spending one-time money that won’t be there the year after next.”

Both Democrats on the conference committee, Kelly and Rep. Jerry Henry of Atchison, refused to sign the conference committee report, forcing Republicans to go through extra procedural hurdles to bring the bill to the floor of both chambers without their signatures.

But when the conference committee met later in the day, supposedly to move the bill out with only Republican signatures, the GOP members said they were in no hurry and would deal with it when they return to Topeka later in the month.

“So far, we’re just trying to find a target for our tax committee to work off of,” said Rep. Ron Ryckman Jr., R-Olathe, who chairs the House Appropriations Committee. “There’s no reason to rush a position when we don’t know our revenue numbers (and) some other pieces of the governor’s budget have to come into place still.”

The budget is based on the assumption that lawmakers will eventually pass several tax measures that Republican Gov. Sam Brownback proposed. Those include big increases in alcohol, cigarette and tobacco taxes.

They also would need to pass the governor’s “tax amnesty” plan that is supposed to encourage delinquent taxpayers to pay the amount they owe, and a $1 billion bond issue in order to reduce state payments into the Kansas Public Employees Retirement System.

Leaders of the House and Senate tax committees have said throughout the session that those are issues they plan to deal with in late April and early May, after they receive updated official revenue estimates for the fiscal year that begins July 1.

Higher education

Another key part of the agreement that negotiators struck Wednesday was a provision to freeze tuition rates at state universities for the next two years.

That was a concession by the House in exchange for the Senate dropping its proposal to cut $9.4 million over two years from the Lawrence campus of Kansas University and $2.1 million next year from Kansas State University.

KU initially called that an acceptable compromise. But other state universities have raised strong objections, including Wichita State University.

“We’re not at all comfortable with it and believe that it would greatly retard the growth and good things we’re doing here for students and the Kansas economy,” said WSU spokesman Lou Heldman.

Breeze Richardson, spokeswoman for the Kansas Board of Regents, said the board had no official comment about the proposed tuition freeze.

But Heldman said the freeze threatened to interfere with major projects underway at WSU, including construction of a new building that will house an engineering center for one of the world’s leading aircraft manufacturers.

“Airbus Americas has committed to bringing about 400 employees to campus, many of them engineers, to work with our students and faculty,” Heldman said. “They’re going to base one of two major North American engineering centers on our campus.”

The fact that the conference committee took no further action on the bill Thursday means that, procedurally, the bill is still in that committee and further changes could be made when lawmakers return April 29.