Compared to last week, the next few days in the state Senate should be relatively stress free. After all, what's a budget battle compared to the knotty property tax relief problem the Senate has been wrestling.

At least a good number of the senators now acknowledge how tough it is to come up with a relief plan that doesn't create more problems than it solves. It's true the House was relatively quick to come up with an answer ? a two cent increase in the state sales tax that would supplant the local residential property tax that now goes to county schools.

But the House has yet to come up with a satisfactory formula for sending the new sales tax funds back to the counties. Some lawmakers predicted from the outset that would be the fatal stumbling block.

The fact is the property tax is a stable source of income. The huge dip in sales tax collections between 2001-2004 should be a warning against counting too heavily on that source of revenue.

Last week senators debated a variety of proposals, including Berkeley Sen. Larry Grooms' statewide plan for funding education that would include a first ? a statewide property tax. The senator did come up with a plan for sending the money back to the school districts that many hailed as the most equitable to date. Still, it failed to get the needed votes.

Sen. Chip Campsen of Charleston emphasizes, however, that none of the ideas debated so far actually are dead. Many, he says, are being re-worked behind the scenes. Actually, Sen. Campsen's idea for a local option sales tax solution will be the plan on the table when the Senate resumes the property tax debate. That plan would give counties the option of imposing a local sales tax to supplant that portion of the property tax on dwellings that goes for education. But Sen. Campsen tells us he wants to see a statewide solution to the education funding problem. He says he won't vote for his own proposal except as a last resort. Obviously that's no recommendation. Additionally, there are a number of constitutional amendments being proposed, including a 15 percent local option cap on reassessment.

With the Legislature set to adjourn in a month, it's hard to imagine how a coherent plan can emerge that incorporates new legislation and proposed constitutional changes that have met the test of careful analysis. And what about public input? There reportedly have been promises to the Palmetto Institute that its proposal for a comprehensive independent study of the tax system will be undertaken in the months ahead. But such a study will come too late if the Legislature settles for some last-resort plan primarily to subdue the clamor back home.

When it comes to carefully considered property tax relief, reality says that lawmakers should start shifting their focus to 2007.