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TOPEKA — The Legislature took first adjournment today with budget and tax work far from complete and a statewide smoking ban still one of the few far-reaching accomplishments of the session.

Social service caseload estimates will be updated April 14. The new general revenue estimates that lawmakers will use to craft the fiscal 2011 budget will come April 16. Until that information is in hand, legislative leaders have concluded there is no point trying to pass a budget or vote on taxes without knowing for sure how large the budget gap will be.

Expectations are that it will be at least $400 million with fears it could be $500 million or more.

Usually, the Legislature takes first adjournment with agency budgets largely decided and at least a broad outline of the final spending plan. Not this year.

"In my 34 years in the Legislature, this is unprecedented," said Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley, a Topeka Democrat who is the body's longest serving member. "We're in an extraordinary time."

Rank-and-file legislators, agency officials and the many people who rely on state-funded services are reconciling themselves to a couple weeks of limbo on budget matters until the Legislature returns for the veto session,

scheduled to begin April 28.

"We don't have much to go on at this point," said Barb Conant, a spokesperson for the Kansas Department on Aging. "We're sort of like everybody else. We're waiting to see what comes next."

Hensley said Senate Democrats early next week will offer their plan for dealing with the budget, which means lawmakers will then have at least four major blueprints from which to choose among or combine.

The governor has called for a 1 cent increase in the sales tax and an increase in tobacco taxes to avoid deeper cuts to schools and social services.

Senate GOP leaders have called for about $300 million in new taxes and about $100 million in cuts. Their current plan would mean about $50 million in reductions to social service programs for the state's neediest.

House Republican leaders are calling for no new taxes and a budget balanced largely by cutting spending on K-12 education and highways but also including a 1 percent cut for all programs excepting education, social service caseloads and prisons.

Hensley said the details of the Senate Democrats' plan were still being hammered out but that it would include some sales tax increases combined with higher income taxes for those making more than $200,000 a year.

He said the plan would aim to fully close the budget gap, whatever that turns out to be. And he said Democrats will push for a budget bill that includes the new taxes written into it instead of running separate tax legislation. He said that would make it easier for some legislators to vote for the bill.

Legislators hate to vote for more taxes and for the House this is an election year.

Hensley and House Minority Leader Paul Davis of Lawrence said they agreed with the decision by Republican leaders to hold off on debating the budget, noting the lack of needed information. In addition to the still-to-come revenue and caseload estimates, policymakers are waiting to see if $130 million in expected federal Medicaid assistance will be approved by Congress.

But some rank-and-file legislators said they didn't understand the decision to delay the session's most important decisions until the approximately 13 days reserved for the wrap-up.

"We haven't even debated the budget. I'm not sure what leadership is thinking," said Rep. Dale Swenson, a Wichita Democrat who switched parties last year. "Everything is a strategy and sometimes strategies backfire."

Swenson said tax increases were inevitable and that the Legislature could have acknowledged that sooner and at least had a well-developed tax plan debated or worked out before first adjournment.

Others said they were disappointed for other reasons.

Sen. Karin Brownlee, R-Olathe, opposes tax increases and said Senate leaders hadn't considered meaningful alternatives to them such as privatizing more state services and "encouraging school districts to use some of their unencumbered balances."

"I think we're headed for a mess," she said, "because currently I don't think people are talking and listening to each other. I don't there is an open-mindedness to considering other options. I don't know a nicer way to say that."