Budget Battle Waits Another Day In State House
[gtxvideo vid=”K5cykPyh” playlist=”” pid=”XiOflQdH” thumb=”http://player.gtxcel.com/thumbs/K5cykPyh.jpg” vtitle=”StateHouse Budget Woes”]
Another day in the state house and still no general fund budget has been brought up in the senate.
That caused a lot of confusion for lawmakers today.
Going in to Wednesday, there was talk the budget would be the big topic of discussion.
But as the day wore on, lawmakers kept working on other bills.
“We passed all of the local bills, some 30 local bills today. Everything that was in the basket that took action from the House from the accountability act to the open meetings legislation was passed,” said Sen. Del Marsh.
Some lawmakers were upset that it’s the very end of the session and they still haven’t finished the only requirement they have each year, and that’s to pass both budgets.
Senator Arthur Orr heads the senate’s general fund budget committee and he says he was ready to bring up the budget. There are very few changes from the bare bones version passed in the house.
“It’s not a desirable budget because I think it severely harms even some of the state agencies to the point of, we’re going to have more work to do in August and I think everyone realizes that,” said Orr.
So why didn’t lawmakers debate the budget with only two days left in the regular session?
“We weren’t prepared to bring it up today. I think Senator Orr is ready. I think the body wanted to get some other things out of the way in case we get held up on the budget. I don’t anticipate that,” said Marsh.
So after everything , it looks like lawmakers will come back to Thursday and finally get to the budget.
