Kansas lawmakers are preparing to wind up the regular session today and are likely to leave without voting on the budget deal that House and Senate negotiators struck Wednesday.

There are several procedural reasons for that, but it boils down to the fact that the two Democrats on the negotiating teams have refused to sign off on the report. That means the House has to take another procedural step known as a motion to “agree to disagree,” and Republican leaders aren’t sure how a vote on that would turn out.

Democrats say they won’t sign off on the budget deal because they think it’s unsustainable. It relies on sweeping millions of dollars out of the state highway fund to pay for general fund expenses. And it’s predicated on the assumption that lawmakers will pass a number of tax measures the governor has asked for, even though there is substantial doubt that the conservative-dominated Legislature will do any such thing.

Some Democrats also objected to the targeted cuts the Senate had proposed to Kansas University and Kansas State University, along with the reallocation of student financial aid money to students at private institutions. But the conference committee restored the KU and K-State money the Senate had cut and agreed to a less drastic reallocation of financial aid in favor of private school students.

The budget deal was worked out Wednesday by a conference committee made up of the chairman, vice chairman and ranking Democrat from the House and Senate budget-writing committees.

Rules of the Legislature say a conference committee report has to be signed by all six members of the panel. And in most cases, the minority party members will sign the report, even if they don’t intend to vote for it. Withholding signatures is seen as a statement of strong protest.

When that happens, the full House and full Senate have to approve an “agree-to-disagree” motion, which sends the report back to the conference committee so it can come out with only four signatures.

The Senate ran its motion Wednesday, but the House did not. And there is concern in the House that enough conservatives don’t like the bill that they won’t vote for the motion because they, too, don’t like the idea that it requires tax increases to be passed later.

If the House adjourns before voting on the measure, the entire budget issue will have to wait until April 29, when lawmakers return for the wrap-up session. By then, they will have new, updated revenue estimates for the next fiscal year showing more closely just how much of a gap there is between desired spending and expected revenue.