SALEM - The work of the Legislature's budget committee stalled Tuesday in a feud over spending between the Republicans who run the House and the Senate's majority Democrats.

House Speaker Karen Minnis, R-Wood Village, directed GOP members of the joint budget panel to boycott the meetings until Senate Democrats "get serious" and stop proposing spending more money than is available.

Minnis was annoyed after Senate President Peter Courtney and other Senate Democrats said Monday the state needs to spend $400 million more on school funding than the $5 billion proposed by Gov. Ted Kulongoski.

The House chief said the Democrats are deciding what they want to spend before figuring out how to pay for their proposals.

"We need to agree on the size of the pie," Minnis said.

The bottom line is that the Senate Democrats want to spend about $300 million more than do the Republicans, by raising new revenue in a plan outlined by Courtney.

Republican leaders said several of the ideas, such as tacking a new fee onto car insurance, wouldn't pass in the House.

Minnis' spokesman, Chuck Deister, said the Ways and Means Committee won't resume usual meetings until there is an agreement on how much there is to spend.

Deister said the new money-raising schemes are at odds with Democrats' statements before the session began in January that "they wanted to join us in building a responsible budget that lives within our existing resources."

The disagreement stems from the Friday release of an updated state budget forecast that increased by $200 million the estimated revenue for the 2005-07 budget.

That new revenue would produce a budget of about $12.2 billion. The Senate Democrats' proposal totals almost $12.5 billion.

That includes $400 million more than Kulongoski budgeted for schools and $100 million to restore money that has been cut in recent years from services for children and the elderly and to avoid raising college tuition.

The Democrats' plan includes raising $92 million for state police from a new insurance policy fee and $25 million from ending some tax breaks.

The Democrats also propose cuts to some parts of Kulongoski's budget, including shaving $60 million from the Corrections Department, mostly by postponing plans to build a 2,000-bed men's prison at Madras.

Republican Rep. Wayne Scott, House co-chairman of Way and Means, said "it's way too early to determine what the number is" for school funding.

He said an insurance surcharge and repealing tax breaks would take money from people and aren't acceptable.

Kulongoski's school support budget has been under steady attack from education advocates as inadequate. Courtney says $5.4 billion is the minimum needed to protect some school districts from shortened school years and swollen class sizes.

Deciding K-12 school funding is the key to shaping the rest of the budget because school aid is the biggest item, accounting for more than 40 percent of spending.

School advocates lauded the Democrats' call for more funding.

Anything less than $5.4 billion "is a failure of leadership and an abandonment of our obligation to our schools and our communities," said Jonah Edelman, executive director of the Portland-based Stand for Children.

But Senate Republican Leader Ted Ferrioli said the news of added revenue available "should put to rest all talk of tax or fee increases."