An omnibus tax bill awaiting action in the Kansas House includes a provision that would allow Douglas County to impose an additional half-cent sales tax to finance expansion of the county jail and a crisis intervention center.

But it is not yet certain that the House will even debate that bill, or whether it has enough support to pass. And even if it does pass the Legislature, county officials said they have not yet decided whether to use the additional taxing authority.

County Administrator Craig Weinaug said that county commissioners have not yet decided whether how to finance those projects and that any financing mechanism would be put on a ballot for voter approval. But without additional sales tax authority, he said the county’s only other option would be to pay for it through property taxes.

Normally, bills to give local jurisdictions additional sales tax authority are not controversial. They’re considered “constituent bills,” meaning they’re important to one group of lawmakers’ constituents, and they’re passed as a matter of courtesy.

But this year the Douglas County provision, along with similar sales tax provisions for Bourbon and Thomas counties, were wrapped into a package of other tax measures needed to pull the state out of a $400 million budget hole.

The House had been expected to debate its tax package on Thursday. But Republican leaders abruptly pulled it from the calendar late Thursday without explanation.

It includes a combination of higher sales taxes and a temporary repeal of an income tax exemption granted in 2012 to more than 330,000 farmers and other business owners who receive nonwage pass-through income from their businesses.

A similar bill in the Senate, which did not include the local sales tax provisions, was defeated on the floor of the Senate Wednesday on a 30-1 vote.