Don't count on seeing a constitutional amendment on education funding anytime soon.

The House and the Senate cannot agree on what the amendment should say. Look for each chamber to shunt aside the other's proposal this week. If they fail this year, lawmakers still have next year to pass one in time for voters to have a say in November 2012.

Their difficulty reaching an accord is a little odd, given that Republicans control 75 percent of the House and Senate and need only 60 percent to pass an amendment.

On Wednesday, the Senate will send the House amendment back to committee for work over the summer and fall. The Senate's version comes to the House with a deadlocked, 7-7, committee vote. Speaker of the House William O'Brien said it is unlikely to pass.

O'Brien, Senate President Peter Bragdon, Gov. John Lynch and Republican and Democratic lawmakers are all working the issue, but they haven't solved the riddle.

O'Brien said he and many other Republicans in the House believe no amendment should “enshrine Claremont,'' referring to the Supreme Court opinion that requires the state to fund adequate education costs for all students.

“It's important to many members of the Republican caucus that we allow education to be defined by parents and teachers and school administrators and school boards, not by bureaucrats in Concord,'' O'Brien said.

He blames Lynch for taking too long to be clear on the language he'd accept. Lynch plays no direct role, but can lean on Democratic lawmakers to go along with a version he finds acceptable. And that version will have to make clear that the Legislature has a responsibility to fund education, a holding O'Brien and his backers have refused so far.

Bragdon said a deal is still possible in the next month, but he's not counting on it.

Whatever version passes has to get a two-thirds majority among voters next year in order to be enacted. Bragdon feels lawmakers have time.

“But unless we get something real soon, we'll have to take some more time. Sometimes when you try to rush it, you mess it up,'' he said.

Rep. David Campbell, D-Nashua, said he's trying to help both sides — House and Senate, Democrat and Republican — to agree.

“I don't think anybody is trying to enshrine Claremont at this point,'' he said. “We need everybody on board to get it through the votes, not just here but with voters.''

He and O'Brien have met, and they agree Democrats will have to be on board if an amendment is to be successful.

“You add some wording and you lose 30 votes on one side; change others, you lose 30 on the other side. And that's just to get ourselves to three-fifths,'' Campbell said.

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It wasn't exactly an armlock and handcuffs, but O'Brien's order that the sergeant at arms escort Rep. Tony Soltani to his seat Wednesday was one for the books.

“Now I know I've seen everything,” Deputy Whip Rep. Shawn Jasper, R-Epsom, said after Soltani, R-Epsom, got the heave-ho. He had refused to comply with O'Brien's order to stop insisting on a veto override vote on right-to-work.

Soltani argued that House membership was present in numbers not seen all year and that the representatives were ready to go.

“It is unfair both to the people, the members and to our own rules to postpone by this, a political maneuver,” Soltani argued as he tried to stop O'Brien from closing the session without the anticipated override attempt.

O'Brien repeatedly had called Soltani “to order,” which means “back to your seat.” He even explained it to him, but Soltani would not relent. Great theater, but Soltani went further than anyone in recent memory in challenging O'Brien in a place that, without decorum, can get out of hand in a hurry.

O'Brien had several explanations for delaying the vote, but it boiled down to the fact that he knew he'd lose.

He said he wanted more time for the Business and Industry Association's call for the override to sink in; that he was short on members of his leadership team; that he was short of about five votes he needed.

And he wanted to wait for a day when there was better turnout. At 96 percent attendance, Wednesday was exceptionally good.

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Forget the notion that the House and the Senate will happily agree on the Senate budget and skip the late, hot nights of negotiating a final deal.

“It is such an important bill and with so many changes, in the exercise of our responsibility we will ask for a committee of conference,” O'Brien said.

He said he also expects to go to the negotiating table over House Bill 2, which the House salted with all kinds of financial changes that Senate Finance Committee Chairman Sen. Chuck Morse, R-Salem, axed on nearly his first read-through. Those included the ban on state funding for New Hampshire Public Television.

Bragdon is working on a plan to put $3 million back into the Senate budget for the University System of New Hampshire. USNH faces the loss of more than $90 million in state funding, a 45 percent cut in 2012 and 2013.

Lynch cut USNH by $5 million a year and took $26 million from the Unique college savings plan — used for scholarship programs — to cover some USNH operations.

The House cut $40 million more for each year, and the Senate stuck with that number until Thursday. The Senate budget now would require USNH to use $3 million in funding for scholarships to New Hampshire students who attend private colleges here. Bragdon said that may change so the $3 million could be used for private and public college aid.

The cuts to USNH would be the deepest to any public college system in the country, according to the American Association of State Colleges and Universities.

“Plus or minus $3 million, that will go down as the biggest cut in the United States this year, and arguably in history,'' AASCU Director Dan Hurley said. “It would make New Hampshire stand out significantly on a national scale.''

USNH includes the University of New Hampshire, Plymouth State University, Keene State College and Granite State College.

Democrats will try Wednesday to restore money for USNH, juvenile diversion programs, congregate housing for the elderly, corrections and hospital payments.

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North Country prison warden Larry Blaisdell is retiring at the end of the month. Blaisdell has run the prison in Berlin for more than six years. Sen. Morse has cited the prison as a model of efficiency. He said the medium-security prison is run so well that privatization would not produce any savings there.

Blaisdell has been with the Department of Corrections since 1982.

The search for his replacement is under way.

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After all the attention the House Redress of Grievances Committee has gotten lately, little of it positive, House Majority Leader D.J. Bettencourt has had enough. He accused Democrats of “grandstanding” as they challenged committee procedures.

In a news release Friday, he said of the committee: “It's the state's complaint box, in place for the people of New Hampshire, and it's their right to be heard.” The Democrats' behavior “indicates they'd just rather put a stick of dynamite in that complaint box and say, ‘We really don't care about your rights or being responsive, open and accessible to you.'”

Minority Leader Terie Norelli, D-Portsmouth, said the committee needs to put its business on hold.

“They don't even have set procedures, yet they are already holding hearings that sometimes seem like reality TV,” she said. The powers the committee gave itself include overturning court decisions, which the Legislature cannot do, Norelli said.

“There are very serious and very real problems there that need to be addressed,” she said.

Tom Fahey is State House bureau chief for the New Hampshire Union Leader and New Hampshire Sunday News. Email him at tfahey@unionleader.com