The Senate's budget-writing committee has taken its turn at next year's $25 billion spending plan, adding $350 million in state dollars to reverse many cuts sought by the House.
BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) - The Senate's budget-writing committee has taken its turn at next year's $25 billion spending plan, adding $350 million in state dollars to reverse many cuts sought by the House.
The 2013-14 budget proposal backed by the Senate Finance Committee on Wednesday looks quite different from the House version that was reached after weeks of behind-the-scenes haggling there.
Senators restored patchwork financing for ongoing programs that had been stripped by the House, but kept it below a threshold that would require a two-thirds vote.
The committee also removed a tie between the budget and changes to the budget process sought by conservative GOP lawmakers in the House.
Senators used the increased funding to fill gaps in public school financing, the TOPS free college tuition program and the LSU hospital privatization deals.