Another spending extension almost certain in budget deadlock

The state is constitutionally mandated to have a balanced budget in place before the beginning of the new fiscal year, which begins on October 1st. It expires Friday night.

The failed budget would have cut $31 million from Medicaid, $5.3 million from the Department of Mental Health, $13 million from the court system, and $14.7 million from the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency. Brown said the two sides remain hundreds of millions of dollars apart.

Both the House and Senate want to end the fee-for-service program for hospitals and doctors who care for Medicaid patients.

A new cabinet-level department would be created, with a secretary appointed by the governor and confirmed by the legislature. “The appetite is not there in my opinion in the Senate to raise taxes and quite honestly it must not be there in the House”.

The measure also contains a newly retooled redistribution of local sales taxes that would help more rural communities at the expense of some urban counties. McCrory threatened to veto the budget if it contained any such redistribution.

“There are some proposals that are out there and some new ones that we’re exploring that would provide some additional revenue and of course we need to put some growth revenue into the general fund to be able to solve this problem long term”, Hubbard said.

“It’s fairness”, Brown said.

Senate Republican leaders made plain their displeasure with what’s inside a $2.86 billion bond package approved by the House last week.

The House Ways and Means General Fund committee on August 4 dealt a setback to supporters of a tax increase, when members rejected a 25 cent increase on cigarette taxes. The governor would not say when he expected to call lawmakers back, leaving open the possibility that he could call them back right before the start of the fiscal year.

Local reps saying a solution hasn’t been found because dealing with a $200 million deficit is complicated, as are many options on the table.

“We’re dealing with real people and real people’s lives”, Bentley told The Associated Press.