KS. Legislature Focus Now On Budget

Kansas legislators return this week to the
Statehouse with the session’s biggest issue – the 2012 budget –
remaining unresolved.
The House and Senate have approved competing plans for spending
$14 billion in the fiscal year starting July 1, including some $6
billion in state revenues. Now comes the difficult task of
reconciling those differences and hoping that an April 15 revenue
estimate is accurate.
Legislators have about two weeks left to finish the job. They
will need most of those days to wade through roughly 200 line items
of differences, including how deep to cut funding for public
schools and whether to issue more bonds to finish renovating the
Statehouse.