Topeka ? State employees could breathe a sigh of relief late Saturday when Kansas lawmakers passed a bill lifting, at least for now, the immediate threat of mass furloughs.

But the stalemate at the Statehouse over how to balance the state’s budget for the next fiscal year remains far from resolved as the 2015 legislative session goes into its record-breaking 108th day on Sunday.

Sen. Les Donovan, left, R-Wichita, abruptly resigned his chairmanship of the Senate tax committee Saturday in a fit of frustration over what he said was a lack of cooperation from fellow senators. Donovan, 79, has tried without success to find a 00 million-plus tax package to balance the budget that can pass the House and Senate.

In fact, frustration among lawmakers grew so strong late Saturday night that Sen. Les Donovan, chairman of the Senate Assessments and Taxation Committee, went into a burst of anger on the Senate floor and threatened to resign his chairmanship.

“If we can’t get together and act as a level-headed, reasonable body of senators, what does the public think about us?” Donovan asked. “We know what they think about us. We ought to be ashamed. I am ashamed. I’m ashamed to be associated with a group that won’t act any better than this.

“This is crazy,” he added. “Absolutely stupid.”

Donovan, who is 79 and has suffered serious heart ailments in recent years, has led the Senate’s negotiating team in conference committee talks with the House, trying to craft a $400 million-plus tax package that can pass both chambers.

Sen. Tom Holland, of Baldwin City, the ranking Democrat on the Senate side of the table, said earlier Saturday that he was frustrated with the session and that the Legislature is too fractured on the subject of taxes.

“The reason why the Legislature is tied up in knots is because you don’t have enough votes to truly support the governor’s glide path to zero,” Holland said.

“If people truly want to do that, they either have to raise (other) taxes to fund that march, or they have to cut the budget,” he added. “There is no political fortitude to do either of these things.”

Preventing furloughs

Without a budget bill and a tax plan to fund it for the fiscal year starting July 1, “nonessential” state workers were facing mass furloughs starting Sunday.

That’s because paychecks for the new pay period starting Sunday are to be issued July 2, and without a budget the state would have no legal authority to issue those checks.

But lawmakers came up with a novel way around that by quickly passing a bill Saturday declaring all state workers to be essential through the end of the session, “for the purposes of civil service and personnel administration relating to state officers or employees being furloughed.”

Gov. Sam Brownback signed the bill later in the day.

“Every state employee is essential to our success and provides needed services to the citizens of our state,” he said in a statement. “All state employees should report to work as normal beginning Sunday, June 7, even though the Legislature has not yet passed a bill authorizing expenditures.”

Senate Republican leaders initially did not want to vote on the bill, saying it was only a symbolic gesture that had no spending authority to back it up.

But legal advisers from the Revisor of Statute’s office had told House Republicans earlier in the day that if the state allows people to come to work, under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, it will be legally obligated to pay them, even if payment has to be made retroactively.

Finding the right mix

Passage of the furlough bill gives lawmakers another three weeks, until the end of the fiscal year, to settle the budget impasse. But it came moments after the Senate voted down another tax package aimed at closing the state’s $400 million budget hole.

It was the third such tax plan to be defeated in as many days. All three bills, including the first two in the House, went down by overwhelming margins.

House Speaker Ray Merrick and Appropriations Committee Chairman Ron Ryckman Jr., both seated, take a break in the House chamber with Minority Leader Tom Burroughs and legislative aides to discuss whether there is any way out of the continuing budget and tax stalemate in the Legislature.

Each of the bills contained a variety of relatively small measures that didn’t stir much controversy, such as an increase in cigarette taxes and a “tax amnesty” plan that would waive interest and penalties for people who pay up back taxes owed to the state.

Other items have been thrown into the mix in hopes of attracting a few “yes” votes. Those have included proposals to impose a property tax lid on cities and counties, and expanding a type of voucher program to fund scholarships for private and parochial schools.

But there has been no agreement on the big-money items: sales taxes and income taxes, especially for business owners who were exempted from taxes in 2012.

The search for votes

On those issues, Republicans in the Legislature are essentially divided into three camps: those who won’t accept income taxes because Brownback wants to phase them out; those who won’t accept sales taxes, either because they’re regressive or they hurt business in border counties; and those willing to accept some combination of both.

“As I’ve said before, we’re not experts at raising taxes,” House Republican Leader Jene Vickrey of Louisburg said. “It’s up to the majority here to pay the bills, and we have an even split really, one way or the other, on which is the right solution. We can find, I believe, when push comes to shove, two-thirds of the votes needed to get to 63 either way, but we have to get 63.”

That’s the minimum number of votes it takes to pass a bill in the 125-member House.

The longer the session drags on, the harder it becomes for leaders to find those 63 votes because an increasing number of members have been absent from sessions recently because of family and work obligations, vacation plans and a variety of other reasons.

That was evident Saturday night when the House had to hold the roll open for nearly two hours to muster 63 votes to pass what had been considered a noncontroversial bill dealing with premium taxes on certain kinds of health insurance policies.

For most of that time, Republicans had 60 votes in favor of the bill, with 25 House members absent, including Republican Rep. Tom Sloan, of Lawrence, whose absence was excused.

Finally, enough absent members were brought back to the chamber to pass the bill. Later, Vickrey announced there would be no more excused absences for the remainder of the session.

Democrats’ strategy

And then there are the Democrats who, despite having only 28 members in the House and eight in the Senate, could be a factor in helping broker a deal with one or more factions in the fractured Republican caucus.

But many Democrats won’t accept sales tax increases that violate one of their core beliefs, that such taxes fall most heavily on the poor. And although Democrats would like to reimpose taxes on business income and restore higher tax rates on upper-income individuals, they won’t vote for it as long as they know Brownback will veto it.

“Why go on record as having supported a tax plan that the governor’s going to veto?” asked House Minority Leader Tom Burroughs, of Kansas City. “The governor’s been void in all of this stuff. He’s telling us what he won’t accept.”

Last week, Brownback did put forth a tax plan that raised sales and cigarette taxes, but did not touch the controversial exemption for non-wage business income. It received only three “yes” votes in the House.

Some Republicans have expressed anger that even if a bill came to the floor giving Democrats everything they want, they would still vote no, either because they don’t want to be seen as helping Brownback or because Brownback would veto the bill.

But Burroughs put the responsibility on Brownback’s shoulders.

“The governor has to put it on the table and clearly indicate that he’s willing to discuss the shortcomings of his previous plan and recognize that his plan has failed,” Burroughs said. “That experiment is not working.”

The Senate is expected to come back into session Sunday afternoon. The House, however, adjourned Saturday night and will not return until Monday, which will be the record 109th day of the session. Each additional day costs the state about $40,000. As of Monday, the total expense for additional days would be $760,000.