FRANKFORT — Kentucky's partial public financing system for gubernatorial campaigns would be eliminated under the Senate version of a budget passed Tuesday.

        House Speaker Jody Richards called it a “deal killer.”

        Senate Republicans said they used the $9 million savings from public financing to partly fund a raise for school workers other than teachers, who would get a salary increase under the House version of the budget.

        The political spin on the move was evident even before the Appropriations and Revenue Committee vote Tuesday. Senate GOP staffers provided a news release that said the budget plan was to “pay teachers not politicians.”

        Sen. Dan Kelly, R-Springfield, said the partial public financing plan could end up costing the state far more than the money taken from the budget if there are numerous slates of candidates that participate.

        Sen. Tim Shaughnessy, D-Louisville, said there should have been a separate discussion over the fate of public financing, and not a last-minute move to kill it in the budget.

        The issue will be on the table once House and Senate negotiators meet to resolve differences in their spending plans.

        “We absolutely believe in public financing,” said Ms. Richards, who will likely be a candidate for governor in 2003.

        The Senate education plan extends a 1.6 percent raise in 2003 and 2.7 percent in 2004 for “classified” school personnel, which includes janitors, bus drivers and cafeteria workers. The House plan included a pay raise for teachers, counselors and administrators.

        The Senate plan makes relatively few changes in the budget plan passed by the House earlier, but some of them are nonetheless significant.

        The Senate plan would mean $70 million more in long-term debt for the state. Numerous items that Gov. Paul Patton and the House proposed financing with ordinary tax receipts would instead be paid for with bond proceeds. State bonds are usually repaid over 20 years, with the ultimate cost being 10 times the principal. Senate Republicans have historically been sharply critical of selling bonds, but committee chairman Richie Sanders, R-Franklin, said the tenuous budget situation this year requires different approaches.

        “This was the hand we were dealt,” Mr. Sanders said.

        Mr. Sanders said Mr. Patton's original budget spent more money than the state expects to take in, making up the difference by spending money from obscure state accounts. The House and Senate plan are also imbalanced over the long haul. “But we are balanced for two years,” Mr. Sanders said.

        The actual budget documents were not released until well after the committee vote Tuesday morning, so many details were difficult to discover in the thousands of pages.

        But the budget apparently overturns a recent Supreme Court ruling that would require the Economic Development Cabinet to make its records on tax incentives to companies available for inspection by the attorney general's office.

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