Some Kansas legislators had an opportunity to go back to their districts and talk to some constituents at the end of last week, and some of what they were saying confirms how far apart state lawmakers are on how to attack this session’s two most important issues: balancing the state budget and providing funding for K-12 public schools.

What legislators were telling constituents in Johnson County didn’t differ all that much from what their colleagues were saying at a legislative coffee meeting in Garden City — and Republicans as well as Democrats were standing in stark opposition to some of the proposals being pushed by House leadership.

“I try to be an optimistic person, but it’s hard to be optimistic,” Rep. John Doll, R-Garden City, told his constituents, according to a report in the Garden City Telegram. Doll told the group he was one of the few Republicans to vote against the governor’s rescission bill, which will take $470,000 away from the Garden City school district and $44 million from KPERS. He said he would be unlikely to support increased cigarette and alcohol taxes or any other tax increases until legislators revisit the 2012 tax bill that lowered income taxes and is blamed for the state’s current revenue shortfall.

Russ Jennings, R-Lakin, also attended the coffee meeting and agreed that the 2012 tax plan was a “huge debacle.” He expressed particular concern about one bill designed to help make up the shortfall: Senate Bill 178, which would drastically increase agriculture land values and the property taxes paid on that land. “It would provide a huge tax shift of the tax burden from urban to rural,” he said. “It’s like an income tax on farmers through property tax.”

Although Jennings said the state’s school finance formula may need revision, he contended that repealing the formula, as the governor has proposed, would hurt rural schools the most and give too much control to urban centers like Johnson County.

Over in Johnson County, however, legislators also were concerned about school funding. Republican Reps. Barbara Bollier and Melissa Rooker joined two Democrats, Rep. Nancy Lusk and Kansas State Board of Education member Janet Waugh, at a forum Thursday focusing specifically on education.

According to the Prairie Village Post, all four panelists agreed that conservative state legislators were seeking to steer state K-12 schools toward a privatized system. Waugh predicted the Legislature would willfully disobey any court order to increase school funding.

Rooker told the group that a majority of state legislators aren’t concerned with revenue shortfalls that resulted from the 2012 tax bill and are comfortable with funding cuts for public education. “They truly do not believe that government belongs in the realm of education,” she said.

No wonder the Legislature is having trouble coming together on these tough issues. The session is about a third over, and no legislation to implement the governor’s block-grant school funding plan has been introduced.

It’s hard to know how many legislators share the opinions of the legislators who spoke in Garden City and Johnson County last week, but it will be interesting to see what impact they might have in the next two months.