A tour of the Statehouse goes on Friday while workers enter a construction area off the rotunda in Topeka. Despite rising costs and a strained budget, Statehouse renovations continue.

Topeka ? Surprises keep popping up eight years into a massive renovation of the Statehouse, including a hidden fireplace and newly discovered marble. Kansas’ looming budget crisis also is providing a few surprises of its own.

The state has altered plans to control costs, now projected at $285 million. But legislative leaders and other officials aren’t planning to suspend or slow down the work.

The question of whether they should arose after a new financial forecast predicted the state will have a $137 million budget deficit at the end of next June. The forecast also said the shortfall could grow to nearly $1 billion by the end of June 2010.

Defending rising costs

The 11-year renovation is a highly visible public works project that already has inspired criticism because of its escalating costs. But defenders argue slowing down the work would be counterproductive because inflation inevitably would make it more expensive once it resumed.

“It’s in our best interest to get it finished,” Senate President Steve Morris, a Hugoton Republican, said Friday.

Before the renovation began, one report pegged its total cost at between $90 million and $120 million, but legislators added an underground parking garage, a basement visitors’ center and new basement office space to the plans.

The state has issued

$211 million in bonds to help finance the renovation, and legislators will decide next year whether to authorize an additional $74 million worth.

The state has made some concessions to budget constraints. Architects originally planned four staircases off the first-floor rotunda to the basement space. Only two will be built. The change will save $1 million per staircase, said House Speaker Melvin Neufeld, an Ingalls Republican.

He also said the state probably will put off buying equipment for audio and video recording of all committee meetings.

But Sen. Chris Steineger, a Kansas City Democrat who has criticized the project over its costs, said the state should delay finishing the visitor’s center. Also, he said, it should put off buying new furniture for newly remodeled offices.

“That’s what a lot of families are doing: They might want new furniture, but they get by with old furniture for a few years,” he said.

Legislators agreed to the project in 2000 because the Statehouse hadn’t undergone a thorough, floor-by-floor renovation in nearly 90 years, and its wiring, plumbing, heating and air conditioning were decades out of date. They also wanted better meeting rooms – and more office space.

Workers have found plenty of unexpected features that were covered up, altered or painted over.

For example, in the governor’s office in the south wing, carpeting has covered up marble trim on the floor for decades.

Legislators have conducted committee hearings and even Senate sessions in a big room on the third floor where the Supreme Court convened before moving to its own building in the 1970s. They kept the court’s bench in place, but workers have discovered that the bench once was about eight feet further back than anyone thought. Stenciling on a back wall also has been uncovered.

Statehouse Architect Barry Greis already knew that the building’s original plans called for two grand staircases in the north and south wings, from the first to fifth floors. In the south wing, the staircases from the fourth to fifth floors never were built.

But workers discovered the openings for the staircases once were there, complete with decorative railings around them. Some time later, the state spread beams across the space and poured concrete floors. Even later, walls went up for conference rooms, which ultimately were divided into legislative offices.

The explanation for why the staircases weren’t built is lost to history. Greis also can’t say when the floors were poured and the walls went up.

‘Short on documentation’

In the former Supreme Court chamber, Greis can point to subtle differences in wood trim patterns under a big, semicircle window looking out into the hallway. He suspects the window replaced what originally were double doors. He’ll know more once workers remove some plaster to test his theory.

“We are very short on documentation, and that’s really for the majority of the project,” Greis said.

Meanwhile, Gov. Kathleen Sebelius and legislative leaders remain committed to finishing the project on its current schedule.