Rep. Jene Vickrey, center, talks with Rep. Steven Johnson, left, and Rep. John Barker after the Kansas House recessed Wednesday, June 10, 2015. The Kansas House is trying to work out a tax plan counter to the current bill passed by the Senate on Sunday. (Bo Rader/The Wichita Eagle via AP)

Topeka ? A tax bill to balance the state’s budget and bring the 2015 session to an end appeared to be failing early Thursday.

As of 12:15 a.m., the bill needed to balance the budget was failing by a margin of 29-86. House leaders were holding the roll open to bring 10 absent members back to the chamber to vote. They were also using that time trying to persuade other lawmakers to change their votes.

All four House members from Lawrence were voting no on the tax bill: Democratic Reps. Barbara Ballard; Boog Highberger and John Wilson; and Republican Rep. Tom Sloan.

House Speaker Ray Merrick and others look up at the electronic vote board in the House as a tax bill needed to balance the state budget appeared to be going down in defeat. Republican House leaders were keeping the roll open late into the night in hopes of persuading some members to change their votes from no to yes.

The House plans to come back at 8 a.m. Thursday, at which time the roll will still be open for a final action vote on the major tax bill. The Senate plans to return at 10 a.m.

“This is the last train out of here,” House Speaker Ray Merrick, R-Stilwell, had told the House Republican caucus before the vote. “There’s not another bill coming. This is it.”

The strategy for closing the session depended on passing two tax bills which, together, would increase state revenues next year by $408 million.

The first depended largely on higher sales and cigarette taxes, along with taxes on one kind of non-wage business income known as “guaranteed payments,” to generate the new revenue.

The second was intended to change some of the policy measures the Senate had added on to the tax bill, but which House members found objectionable.

The additional revenues are needed to close an estimated $360 million gap between current revenue estimates and spending approved in a series of budget bills already sent to the governor.

House Taxation Committee Chairman Marvin Kleeb, R-Overland Park, tried to frame the issue by saying the tax increase — described by many as the largest in state history — was needed to fund vital services.

“This isn’t about tax increases,” he said. “This is about funding education. It’s about making sure that money is there for Medicaid. It’s about taking care of our elderly and our disabled. … And so every vote yes tonight is going to be a vote for the kids. It’s going to be a vote to take care of the people we said we would help.”

But Democrats and many moderate Republicans were holding out on supporting any bill that did not reimpose income taxes on the profits of certain kinds of businesses.

“This bill raises $479 million in taxes, while 338,000 business owners like myself pay no income tax,” said Rep. Tom Sawyer, D-Wichita, the ranking Democrat on the tax committee, referring to the original Senate plan. “It’s extremely unfair. We already have the highest sales tax in the region, and we want to go ahead and raise it higher, to 6.55 percent.”

The Senate had tacked a number of other tax policy measures onto that bill, measures that many in the House found objectionable.

So the plan was for the House also to vote on a second bill that would remove, or at least soften some of those policy measures. Those included prohibiting cities and counties from increasing property tax revenues by more than the rate of inflation, except under a few circumstances.

“I find it ironic that as we vote to raise taxes without a vote of the people who will be affected, we restrict the ability of local governments to do the same,” said Rep. Kathy Wolfe Moore, D-Kansas City.

Even before debate in the House began Wednesday night, senators were making plans to adjourn the session and go home.

That would raise several constitutional questions, since the Kansas Constitution requires the state to have a balanced budget.

Some lawmakers suggested Brownback could make the cuts himself, either through line-item vetoes in the budget bill, or through “allotment” cuts that he could order directly.

Earlier in the week, the Department of Education had published a spreadsheet showing how a 6.2 percent across-the-board cut – the amount that would be needed to balance the budget – would mean taking $197 million out of K-12 education, including $3.8 million from the Lawrence school district.

But others suggested Brownback would not make those cuts, and would choose instead to call lawmakers back for a special session.

“I’m speculating that that might be the case,” Kleeb said earlier in the day. “That’s very heavy appropriations work, and I don’t know that he’s going to want to take that up himself.”

Brownback himself would not say how he would respond if lawmakers adjourned.

“One step at a time here,” he told reporters earlier in the day. “Let’s get this (tax bill) passed. That’s what they need to do.”