Budget Update
As of noon on Friday, legislative leadership has yet to appoint
conferees to begin the budget conference process. It was believed
budget negotiations between the House and Senate were to begin this
weekend but it seems increasingly unlikely to happen. Leaders are
hashing out allocations for the various budget areas behind closed
doors and will not begin conference until after an agreement has
been made. Deciding how the massive influx of non-recurring federal
dollars will be spent is presumably slowing down the process.
As reported last week, lawmakers have until April 27th to
finalize the budget, meeting the 72 hour "cooling off"
period before the last day of Regular Session, April 30th.
Currently, the House is at roughly $97 billion while the Senate
comes in at $95 billion. The current state budget is $92
billion.
