MONTGOMERY - State school Superintendent Joe Morton today said he and other state education officials intend to bill BP for losses to the state Education Trust Fund caused by the Gulf oil spill that followed the April explosion of an oil rig.

The trust fund gets most of its money from state sales-tax and income-tax collections, and Morton said those collections would be hurt by diminished tourism on the Gulf Coast.

Morton said the state education department likely would present the first bill to BP in 30 to 45 days. He said the department will work with Gov. Bob Riley's office or perhaps Attorney General Troy King's office toward filing a lawsuit if BP rebuffs the bills.

Morton said he will enlist outside ''economic experts'' to help develop models that clearly demonstrate how much money the trust fund lost because of the oil spill.

''As tourism diminishes along Alabama's Gulf Coast, as the seafood industry is crippled due to the 'no fishing' areas of the Gulf of Mexico, as oyster and shrimping areas are decimated by the oil spill, tax receipts to the ETF will suffer,'' Morton said at a press conference attended by state school board members Randy McKinney of Orange Beach and Ethel Hall of Fairfield.

''The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is wreaking havoc on our environment and Gulf Coast economy,'' Morton said. ''We cannot allow it also to undermine our public schools by reducing the very tax receipts that pay our teachers' salaries and help our classrooms keep the learning environment alive daily.''