Kansas University’s student newspaper will learn this week whether slashed funding — which cost the newspaper staff positions and sparked a lawsuit — will be restored for the coming school year.

The KU Student Senate is scheduled to vote Wednesday on required student fees for 2016-17, including the amount of money to be allocated to The University Daily Kansan.

Going in to the meeting, the recommendation is to bring the Kansan’s funding back up to where it was two years ago, before the Student Senate cut it in half for the current school year. The cut amounted to about $45,000.

The Kansan’s other, and larger, funding source is advertising revenue.

The Senate’s Finance Committee met and voted last week to increase the Kansan fee from $1 to $2, Senate Communications Coordinator Isaac Bahney said.

“Representatives from the Kansan were present and explained that the increase is needed to fund a second adviser position and also to help restore student positions that were cut last year,” Bahney said.

Jon Schlitt, the Kansan’s sales and marketing adviser, has served double-duty as its news adviser this year.

Schlitt said he was “encouraged” by the recommendation.

“I view it as progress,” he said. “If this goes through next Wednesday, it will improve both the health of the Kansan and, in the process, the learning experience.”

Ultimately the KU chancellor must sign off on the Senate’s fee package, but it’s unusual for administration to make changes.

A federal lawsuit filed by current and former Kansan editors against Chancellor Bernadette Gray-Little and Vice Provost for Student Affairs Tammara Durham, remains pending.

Kansan leaders aren’t saying how getting back lost funding might affect that lawsuit.

For now, Schlitt said, “restoration of the Kansan fee to $2 I would view as an important step toward resolving the whole situation.”

On Feb. 5, Kansan Editor-in-Chief Vicky Diaz-Camacho and former Editor-in-Chief Katie Kutsko sued Gray-Little and Durham, alleging that by approving the 2015-16 fees they allowed the Student Senate to illegally cut the newspaper’s funding based on its content, creating a chilling effect on its “expression of First Amendment-protected speech.” Kutsko works as an intern for Sunflower Publishing, which, along with the Journal-World, is owned by The World Company.

The lawsuit says the decision to cut the Kansan’s funding was in retaliation for a May 2014 editorial criticizing the Senate. The suit documents statements by Senate representatives indicating the decision was intended to punish the newspaper for its content.

According to the lawsuit, Senate leaders cited the newspaper’s reduced publication schedule as their official reason for cutting its funds. In fall 2015, the paper began printing two days a week instead of four.

The budget cut detrimentally affected the Kansan’s ability to report and distribute news, according to the lawsuit, forcing the paper to leave its news adviser position vacant and eliminate 13 paid student editorial and advertising positions.