(RALEIGH) -- Some Democratic state lawmakers are urging Republicans to make education a top priority when closing North Carolina’s projected $3.7 billion budget gap. GOP leaders have pledged to address the problem without raising additional taxes.

Rep. Ray Rapp said education programs should be the last thing budget writers considering cutting.  "The contest to that, without being cliched, is we cannot afford to eat our seed corn," said Rapp.

But Sen. Jerry Tillman, who will chair the education committee during the 2011 session, said at this point, nothing is off the table. "I would like to say that the classroom is of the table, but if you are looking at 60 percent of the budget in education and 80 to 90 percent of that being personnel, when you start doing the cuts of the magnitude that we're going to have to do, there's going to be pain and there's going to be lots of pain," said Tillman.