Utah's $613 million budget surplus continued to get doled out behind closed doors as House and Senate majority leadership haggled over priorities for hours on Tuesday.

Of particular stickiness is education. While the Legislature and the governor wanted a repeat of last year's $2,500 raise for teachers, lower revenue projections have cut into just about everyone's wish list.

Instead, the raises could be much closer to $1,700, said Sen. Curt Bramble, R-Provo, after the late-night meeting.

"On education in particular ... the House and the Senate, we still have some more work to do," he said.

There's also substantial debate over how much to increase the standard education marker: the weighted pupil unit. Some sides would like to see money put into more specific proposals such as language initiatives or Sen. Howard Stephenson's bills for differentiated pay for math and science teachers, and voluntary year-round school.

Bramble declined to go into much detail on other sticking points related to education or the budget in general.

"We need to take them back to our caucus before we read about them (in the press)," he said.

The committee that is supposed to ultimately decide the budget -- executive appropriations -- was cancelled Tuesday for the third time in a row.

And while the state is working with its third-largest surplus in history, even $613 million isn't much when factoring in a booming public education population and desperate transportation needs. Said committee co-chairman Sen. Lyle Hillyard, R-Logan: "It goes easy."

That could leave a lot empty hands, if the committee manages to meet today at the scheduled time.

Another way to fill those hands may be a local tax increase.

Bramble slid an optional 1/10 of a percent sales tax increase into a bill originally targeting airports. The money would be used for roads, ostensively Interstate 15. Asked how much money it would raise, Bramble replied only with "a lot."

The I-15 plan getting the most traction would be reconstruction from 12300 South in Salt Lake County through Spanish Fork. The cost would be nearly $4 billion.

The tax would have to be raised on the county level, not at the state level. Utah County commissioners did not return calls on Tuesday seeking comment.

The state's budget is expected to be around $12 billion, but most of that has already been spent weeks ago by the passage of a base budget.