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Just as the House seemed ready to vote on an education funding bill, Rep. Mike Hawker said not so fast.

Hawker, R-Anchorage, who oversaw an education task force last summer, said Wednesday he wanted to review a concern from the Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District.

The issue: Does a provision to fund student transportation need revising or did the district err in calculating how much it would receive from the state.

The district calculated it should be in line for $900,000 more for transportation than what state officials estimated.

"I'm trying to find out how come we've come up with the discrepancy," said district Superintendent George Troxel. "I don't have answers for you right now."

Hawker pushed to have the bill sent back to the House Finance Committee for another hearing Friday. He hopes to have the problem resolved and back to the House for a vote next week. It's been the Legislature's goal to have education funding approved by early March.

"There is nothing sinister going here," Hawker said. "This is strictly procedural. Everything in this bill will get fully vetted.

"I'm not taking a position right now; I'm just granting a full hearing. Right or wrong, I'm going to solve these issues in an open committee, get the facts straight and make a decision."

The Mat-Su district serves 16,000 students at 41 schools, drawing from a region as large as West Virginia.

Sen. Charlie Huggins, R-Wasilla, said he was aware of the problem and confident it would get worked out.

"This is an effort to just get it right, to seek some perfection, if you will," Huggins said. "I think everyone's doing that in good faith.

"This is one of those things that's worthy of us to take the district's numbers, the state's planning numbers, then compare them so that they are about as right as we can get them."

House Minority Leader Beth Kerttula, D-Juneau, concurred.

"We should look at it if there is an issue," she said. "If it's off for one district, we need to be sure about what that means because it will make every other district wonder.

"So I think it's right to pull back that bill. With the 90-day session going so fast, there is bound to be problems with the more important pieces of legislation."

Earlier this month, the committee passed a three-year funding plan hashed out by the task force during the summer.

The bill added another $118 million for public schools for the upcoming year. Public schools already are budgeted at more than $885 million for the next fiscal year.

The bill does not incorporate Gov. Sarah Palin's proposed increase to the base funding. She is asking for a $200 a year, per pupil increase; the House so far has a $100 increase.