AUSTIN — Texas lawmakers began to reassemble the broken pieces of school finance and tax reform Wednesday largely by crafting bills similar to ones that crumbled in disagreement last month.

"We could very well have a train wreck," said Rep. Al Edwards, D-Houston, House Ways and Means Committee member.

The committee is pushing the same tax bill that the Senate refused to swallow last month.

The House and Senate education committees also are clinging to conflicting ideas that each side previously rejected, although both are incorporating issues on which they agreed during end-of-session negations last month.

The plans differ widely from a proposal pushed on the opening of the 30-day special session by Gov. Rick Perry.

Legislative leaders expect both the tax and school reform bills to reach the House and Senate chambers early next week. And then the delicate work will begin with negotiators from both sides trying to reach a compromise.

"There is no verbal agreement, there's no handshake at all right now, to be very upfront and honest with everybody," said Rep. Jim Keffer, R-Eastland, chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee.

His committee could pass out a tax reform bill today that the Senate gave the thumbs-down last month.

The measure would lower the maximum local school property tax rate for maintenance and operations from the current $1.50 per $100 valuation to $1.15 initially at a cost of $3.8 billion and then to $1.10 at a cost of $4.5 billion.

To raise the billions necessary, the committee would revamp the business tax to extend it to more firms, requiring them to pay either a wage tax or the current franchise tax. The bill would raise sales taxes and include items not currently taxed..

The Senate wants to keep funding formulas, including adjustments for students considered more costly to teach such as children from low-income families and children with limited English abilities. But the House prefers a new funding approach, using block-grant type allocations.

House and Senate leaders, however, are not willing to discuss those differences.

"I'm really not going to get into areas of agreement or disagreement," House Public Education Chairman Kent Grusendorf, R-Arlington, said. "I don't want to get into a fight in the newspapers over what I said and what (Senate leaders) said."

The governor will start airing radio ads today to promote his plan and simultaneously launch a three-day swing of Texas to drum up support for his school funding plan — starting with stops in Irving, Houston and San Antonio.

Publicly, legislative leaders are hopeful in the early days of the special session of agreeing on a new school funding plan and school property tax cut.

"I am optimistic, Pollyanna, I guess, because we have come a long way," Senate Education Chairwoman Florence Shapiro, R-Plano, said.

But some senators on her committee grumbled that the state is not going nearly far enough toward improving public education.

Last month, the Senate proposed to spend an extra $1.6 billion a year to educate the 4.4 million Texas children attending public schools. That figure has now dropped to about $1.3 billion.

"This is our opportunity to set the course for the next 10 years," said Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, D-San Antonio, a member of the Senate Education Committee. "I'm disappointed that we don't have the amount that we need for our school kids."

Both House and Senate bills propose a $2,000 across-the-board pay raise for teachers, which includes a $500 health insurance portion that already was guaranteed to them. Surveys show Texas teacher pay about $6,000 below the national average.

"This is really minimal," Sen. Judith Zaffirini, D-Laredo, said of the proposed pay increase. "The teachers will be very disappointed."

Some teachers would get incentive bonuses of about $800, under the legislation, based on student performance.

"I hate to look at incentives before we give teachers an adequate pay raise," Zaffirini said.

The House school reform version would place restrictions on the amount of money that wealthy school districts are currently sharing with poor districts under the so-called "Robin Hood" system.

Some senators complained that the House approach allows super-wealthy school districts to break free of the state's public school funding system.

"Today our funding system ties all schools together," Sen. Todd Staples, R-Palestine, said. "The problem I see with (the House plan) it is that we are creating two classes."

Or, as Van de Putte described it: "The big dogs are getting real fat under the House version."

Rep. Mike Villarreal, D-San Antonio, Ways and Means vice chairman, said he is concerned with the proposed tax reform measure.

"I came here to fund excellence in schools, and this bill does not do that," he said.