HELENA -- As lawmakers prepare to meet this week to see a draft rewrite of Montana's school-funding formula, educators and others are saying it can't possibly be ready and should be abandoned for now.

A coalition of school groups also said Monday it has an alternative that can be easily explained and understood, including its impact on public schools and taxpayers next year.

"They don't have a plan, and we do," said Lance Melton, executive director of the Montana School Boards Association. "We can tell you exactly what it does for taxes -- nothing -- and what it does for schools, which is a lot."

The coalition's proposal would up state funding of public schools by $100 million next year, an 18 percent increase.

The school-funding proposals are in response to a 2004 Montana Supreme Court ruling that said the state is not adequately funding public schools.

Lawmakers have been wrestling since January with how best to respond to the ruling, which said Montana's system of funding schools is unconstitutional.

The Quality Schools Interim Committee, a panel of lawmakers that endorsed a funding-formula rewrite on Nov. 2, is scheduled to meet Friday in Helena to review a draft bill to enact the ambitious changes.

The bill draft could be forwarded to the full Legislature, which may meet in special session in mid-December to tackle the school-funding issue.

But school officials across the state were still waiting Monday for a spreadsheet that showed the Quality Schools committee draft rewrite's potential impacts on individual school district budgets and taxes.

The spreadsheet is scheduled to be out today although the state's top budget official said it still may contain some glitches.

David Ewer, the governor's budget director, said the model is trying to reflect the many complex changes endorsed by the panel on Nov. 1 and 2.

"At some point we have to release it," he said. "I can't vouch-safe that it will be completely accurate. We would have to take more time, and at some point, we've got to get it out there."

Melton said it's already too late for school districts to fully examine and analyze the potential impact to their budgets and taxpayers, and prepare testimony for Friday's meeting.

Instead, the Quality Schools committee should forget about finishing a total funding-formula rewrite now and look at short-term alternatives, Melton and others said.

State Sen. Dave Lewis, R-Helena and a member of the committee, said Monday he agrees it's not realistic to redo the entire formula in a special session four weeks from now.

"I just don't think we can put this formula together and get it properly analyzed and properly discussed before December," he said. "We ought to look at an interim step. I would hope the committee can get back and talk about that."

Lewis has been supportive of proposals similar to those floated by the Montana Quality Education Coalition, which organized the lawsuit that led to the Supreme Court order.

Rep. Monica Lindeen, D-Huntley, the chairwoman of the panel, could not be reached for comment Monday.

The proposal advanced by Melton and other members of the coalition would increase state school funding by $4,000 for each "certified professional" serving kids in the system, worth about $57 million.

It also would increase per-pupil funding by $300 to cover operation and maintenance, assistance for underachieving kids, and curriculum changes to teach Indian culture, which is required by the constitution. That's another $45 million.

Melton said there's enough state money to cover the increase without raising anyone's property taxes.

Eric Feaver, president of MEA-MFT, the union representing public school teachers, also acknowledged that it's already working with individual legislators to introduce alternative proposals if a special session is called.

"I wish that the (Quality Schools) committee and the governor would just listen to the education community for a change," he said. "We could have a very short special session if the governor and the committee would give us an opportunity and not look at it as some sort of thing imposed (on them). That isn't the deal at all."

Gov. Brian Schweitzer has said he will call a brief special legislative session only if a bipartisan consensus on school funding emerges among legislators.