This was a short week with the King Holiday on Monday and a late start on Tuesday for those who participated in the Monday inauguration. The full appropriations committee met on Wednesday in both chambers and had a briefing from the LSA on the Governor’s budget which is a broad overview. Thursday the joint budget sub committees met to start their work on the budget. The standing committees subs have started to meet and work on legislation and so far there does not seem to be a flood of bills being introduced.
The main point of contention between the chambers and the Governor so far has been the allowable growth increase for K-12 schools. The Governor wants his education reform bill passed before the allowable growth, since it also has funding in it and he also wants to take it off property tax and use general fund money. The Senate is working on a 4% allowable growth and using existing system of property tax to fund it. The law specifies that this needs to be passed in first 30 days of the session, which is rarely accomplished. This is the first of probably many partisan issues.
No comments:
Post a Comment