HARRISBURG -- In their 13th day without a state spending plan, lawmakers yesterday moved further apart than they've been all budget season -- and college students are caught in the middle.

During a contentious House Appropriations Committee meeting, Chairman Dwight Evans, D-Philadelphia, unveiled a new spending plan that provides no money for higher education.

He proposed moving education to a separate account outside the general fund. He offered no concrete funding stream but suggested a menu of tax hikes and gaming expansions.

House Republicans balked and said the plan makes students pawns in a mission to force a tax increase.

It calls for $27.8 billion in general-fund spending, not including money for community colleges, the State System of Higher Education, the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency and Thaddeus Stevens College of Technology in Lancaster, which together got $1.2 billion in state money last fiscal year. Those entities would be moved into a separate fund.

State-related universities -- Pitt, Penn State, Temple and Lincoln -- would not be affected by Mr. Evans' proposal. They are funded through separate bills that the Legislature hasn't taken up yet.

Critics such as Rep. Doug Reichley, R-Lehigh, say the proposal puts the budget $1.2 billion out of balance and places college students at risk of losing tuition help.

Rep. Mario Civera, the ranking Republican on the Appropriations Committee, called the plan a sham.

"It's not a sincere budget in my mind. ... All this is a step backward," he said after last evening's party-line committee vote to send the Evans plan to the House floor. "Every college student ... is looking at having their tuition jacked up or they can't go to school."

Mr. Civera said his caucus would not be strong-armed into approving a tax increase.

Democrats say they aren't tied to increasing the income tax. Higher education could be funded through a blend of new money that could come from increasing the 6 percent sales tax, legalizing and taxing video poker in bars, allowing table games in casinos or repealing tax exemptions.

"I'm prepared to advocate for more money for higher ed through [those sources] and any other sources anybody has," Mr. Evans said.

The plan Mr. Evans proposed would bring the budget, including spending on higher education, to $29.1 billion, higher than any other plan publicly vetted so far.

Last week, Democrats were pressing for $28.7 billion while Republicans wanted $27.3 billion in spending.

"Dwight Evans keeps saying he wants to compromise, but he just moved in the other direction," said Steve Miskin, spokesman for the House Republican caucus. "How could any reasonable person think that's moving closer?"

The Evans plan would restore funding to the Scranton School for the Deaf and the Scotland School, which serves children of veterans in Central Pennsylvania. The budget proposed by Gov. Ed Rendell eliminated funding for them. Compared to Mr. Rendell's budget, Mr. Evans' plan provides more funding for hospitals and libraries, and less for public schools.

Republicans, meanwhile, are airing their own proposal. They want to cut discretionary spending, lease out state land for oil extraction and provide amnesty to tax scofflaws who pay up.

Either bill could come to a vote this week.

Meanwhile yesterday, the governor attacked several provisions in the Republican plan but said he was glad to see it provided for tapping into the Rainy Day Fund. He said that signaled that Republicans understood the need for additional revenue.

Friday about 33,000 state workers will get pay checks that contain only 70 percent of their normal pay because they won't be paid for days worked after July 1, when the new fiscal year began. On July 24, another group of 44,000 state workers will get checks containing only 20 percent of their normal pay.

If the budget stalemate drags into August, neither group will be paid until a budget is approved, Mr. Rendell said.