Lawmakers spent part of their day Sunday pointing fingers and trying to save face after a last-minute effort to salvage school finance reform in the Legislature fell short.

The impasse even fueled discussions of a special session to take another crack at the issue as the lawmakers approached today's end of the 140-day legislative session. But for that session to work, or even begin, Republican leaders must overcome the stark differences that kept them from agreeing to final proposals that they could take back to their chambers for approval.

The failure to reach a consensus on school finance will cost schools about $3 billion over two years and left lawmakers without a solution to a problem that affects voters' tax bills and children's education.

Senate and House negotiators strongly disagreed about new taxes to replace billions of dollars in reduced property taxes. Discussions over the past two weeks yielded little movement by House members, who wanted to raise more with consumer taxes, or by senators, who wanted a broader business tax.

Gov. Rick Perry and legislative negotiators tried late Saturday to salvage the other piece of school finance legislation, House Bill 2, a $3 billion proposal that would have raised teacher salaries and reworked the formulas that determine a school's state funding. Lawmakers struggled to forge an agreement on that measure during the last week as well but always talked optimistically about reaching a deal.

House and Senate negotiators broke from a meeting with Perry and Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, who presides over the Senate, shortly after 11 p.m. Saturday. Senate officials said they thought they had an "agreement in principle" on the school bill. So did Perry, spokesman Robert Black said.

Negotiators were minutes away from a crucial legislative deadline that they were not likely to meet. But some in the room hoped that they could at least put the school measure to rest, then focus on taxes and lay the groundwork for a quick special session that Perry could call within days.

"The Senate made a number of concesssions; the House made a number of concessions," Dewhurst said.

But those hopes were dashed soon after Perry and the lead House negotiator reported back to House Speaker Tom Craddick. He said Sunday that there was not time to meet a midnight deadline for having a bill printed and distributed, and he knew that he could not gather the two-thirds vote among the full House that he would need to overrule that deadline.

Craddick said the two sides had agreed to some concepts but not the final language that would show how the new system would affect the schools in each lawmaker's district.

"We've had concepts for a week," said Craddick, R-Midland. Plus, he said, the school measure depended on passage of the doomed tax proposal.

Unless Perry calls a special session, the issue will now go to the Texas Supreme Court. The high court will hear an appeal this summer of a 2004 ruling that the current finance system is unconstitutional, largely because of underfunding.

Black said Perry thinks that lawmakers are close to an agreement on the education proposal and that they can overcome their differences on taxes.

"As soon as these two bodies can reach an agreement, the governor will give serious consideration to calling them back in a special session," Black said.

Creating a new system of paying for public schools in Texas seemed like a reachable goal when the session began in January.

Republicans, after all, hold comfortable majorities in the House and Senate. District Judge John Dietz of Austin declared the system unconstitutional last fall and explained his problems with the system in a 135-page decision. And the current system's reliance on property taxes is unpopular with voters.

But state leaders were determined not to raise taxes overall, which limited the money available for schools and cost them support among education groups.

"The state leadership has failed their end-of-course exam because they chose to be cheerleaders chanting 'revenue neutral' instead of making the responsible choices required of those who govern," the Texas State Teachers Association said in a statement Sunday.

The battle over taxes also illustrated the different pressures that the leaders of the House and Senate face.

House Republicans do not need Democratic votes to pass most bills, but Democrats have enough votes in the Senate to block legislation from coming up. Democrats were particularly critical of efforts to raise the sales tax, saying they hurt low- and middle-income families, and Dewhurst's bargaining position reflected that.

Senate negotiators also put more emphasis on seeing that every school district in the state has nearly the same amount of money per student.

The only voters that Craddick has to answer to are the ones in his West Texas district. Southern Methodist University political science professor Cal Jillson said that allows him to pursue a more narrow agenda than that of Dewhurst, who is elected in a statewide vote.

"The West Texas constituency is smaller cities and rural areas, sort of the traditional Texas," Jillson said. "Whereas Dewhurst has to keep his eyes on the cities and the big suburbs around the cities. That is simply an area that is more aware of urban problems, and it has an upper-middle-class constituency that is damn sure their kids are going to get a good education."