TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas' attorney general and conservative lawmakers worry that the State Department of Education has informally tweaked policies determining how school funding is distributed.

Their concerns are likely to prompt a broad, independent audit of how the department distributes more than $4 billion in aid each year to the state's 286 school districts.

Education Commissioner Randy Watson said Tuesday that he's working a plan for such a review.

A state audit last month said a calculation used by the department for decades in distributing transportation funds was "not authorized" by law and cost the state an extra $45 million over the past five years.

Top Republican legislators failed to get the department's deputy commissioner suspended but continue to ask whether similar issues exist elsewhere in the funding formula.