COLUMBIA - Gov. Mark Sanford said Wednesday that he thinks lawmakers should study how to fund education in South Carolina before they start to tweak property taxes.

The House and Senate each formed committees this summer to focus on relief for property owners, especially for those being forced out of their homes by skyrocketing taxes along the coast.

"I think, unfortunately, the caboose is leading the train on this one," Sanford said. "You've got to look at what's the driver of this train. The reason property taxes are there is because of education."

The Republican governor told about 50 members of a Kiwanis Club in Columbia that efforts to give property owners a tax break would be the "hot-button" issue of the upcoming legislative session.

"If you want relief ... then how are we going to do it in a way that still provides adequate funding for the education process?" Sanford asked.

House Speaker Bobby Harrell, R-Charleston, said the public clearly wants the General Assembly to look at property taxes.

"We have had a long-standing commitment to funding education," Harrell said. "I don't think you have to do one or the other. I believe you can do both at the same time."

Harrell and Senate leaders say there is no simple answer to ease the tax burden because education funding is a big part of the equation.

"We are not going to ignore education, but I'm just not going to put the property owners on the back seat," said Sen. Glenn McConnell, R-Charleston. "People's homes are at stake; it's time to act."

The problem is that the state's revenue is generated by what lawmakers refer to as a three-legged stool: property tax, sales tax and income tax. By reducing property tax, other taxes need to increase to provide government services.

One idea would eliminate property taxes by possibly raising the sales tax or other taxes such as cigarette tax to pay for state government. Another idea would limit services for which property taxes could be used. Public education could be funded by a different tax.

It would be tough to eliminate property taxes because, on average, they provide 84 percent of local funding to the state's school districts, according to the Senate subcommittee.

Sanford pointed to the pending lawsuit in which eight schools districts say the state's method of funding schools shortchanges rural districts.

"You've got an equity lawsuit about some counties in some of the rural parts saying 'Wait, we don't have enough,'" Sanford said. "You want to be careful to make sure any of these proposals that they're trying to limit property tax for the big homes on Sullivans Island ... that you're not therefore loading up more tax on some guy living in a trailer in Hampton County."

Harrell and Sen. Hugh Leatherman, R-Florence, said the legislature fully funded education this year as required by law.

"I don't believe the people of this state are willing to sit back and wait on the courts to make whatever determination they make in that suit when many of them are being taxed out of their homes," Leatherman said.

But not all the proposals would cost more. One possibility would restrict when values are reassessed to when property is purchased or when a major improvement is made. Another plan would put a cap on how much the assessed value could increase over a period of time.

Lawmakers expect to ask voters to help make changes with an amendment to the state constitution.

Sanford said his staff is researching what other states have done with property taxes "so we can, hopefully, knowledgeably, react to the different proposals that will be laid out on each side."

The governor said he is open to ideas on the issue.