On my weekly political segment on ABC TV News/WTXL 27 HD, I have been asked how the state’s annual budget is developed. It may surprise readers to know that generally there is a lot of input, comment, reflection and as they say, “checks and balances.” The start is when the agencies submit their request to the Governor. The Governor then submits his own (the same or different) request to the Senate and House of Representatives. Almost concurrently the Joint Revenue Estimating Conference submits it’s revenue estimate for the budget term to the legislature. The next step is the most critical– the Chairman of the full Appropriations’ Committee gives the Subcommittee Chairmen their “allocation” of the anticipated revenue. It can be the same as, more than, but probably less than, the Governor’s request. It is at this point that position matters. The allocation can be forwarded in many ways–verbal, print, e-mail, but it is almost always with a clear communication from the next higher pay grade on priority funding needs. The same request process is repeated for the next higher pay grade above that. Sometimes it is here that the negotiating tactics start–like deliberately omitting funding that the counterpart subcommittee has as a priority so that it can be traded in conference. This is the start, with more of a description of the process to come.
