Senate Finance Committee preserves governor’s full pre-K plan
Lawmakers are working out the final details in the state’s $26 billion budget, forcing tough decisions on favorite initiatives for the fiscal year beginning July 1.
The Senate Finance Committee — controlled by Democrats even though Republicans have a 17-16 majority in the full Senate — also fought back a GOP effort to limit Gov. Phil Bredesen’s preschool expansion plan.
Republicans wanted to force the governor to come back every year to get new approval to spend $25 million in lottery money on pre-kindergarten classes for 9,000 children. Right now the state has a pilot program serving 3,000 at-risk 4-year-olds.
The Legislature already has approved the bulk of the pre-K plan. But Republicans tried Tuesday to limit funding to just the upcoming year.
“We don’t know how much the lottery is going to bring in from year to year,” said Sen. Jeff Miller, R-Cleveland. “It’s foolhardy to say we’re going to put $25 million in no matter what happens.”
Democrats argued that few school districts would be willing to commit to the program with their own money if the state matching money was going to be in limbo from one year to the next.
“If we don’t want to do it, we ought not to do it,” said Sen. Roy Herron, D-Dresden. “But if we’re going to do it, surely to goodness, we ought to make more than a one-year commitment to these folks.”
The Senate committee also delayed action on Wilder’s plan that would have earmarked any extra money collected by the state for state employee pay raises.
The senators have already decided in principal to boost the governor’s proposed 2 percent pay hike for state employees to a 3 percent pay hike.
Wilder wants to increase it as much as another 3 percent if the state collects enough extra tax money in the coming year.
“I beg you to do right by your employees,” Wilder said.
Senators expressed reservations about earmarking money the state doesn’t even have yet. But they didn’t kill the idea out of deference to the influential Senate speaker, a role that gives Democrat Wilder power over committee assignments and much of the chamber’s business.
The plan “takes us down a dangerous road,” said Sen. Randy McNally, R-Oak Ridge. “I think what it does is create a false sense of hope.”
The Senate panel already has sketched out plans to increase state spending about $300 million over the governor’s original proposal. More money would be sent to TennCare, the 3 percent pay raise for state employees and other initiatives.
A report released Tuesday by the Task Force on the HealthCare Safety Net offered ideas on how to spend money to help about 225,000 disenrolled TennCare clients.
Bredesen said some of the proposals are already included in the $300 million worth of budget increases allowed by higher state revenues that have taken shape in recent days. More money could be added by lawmakers as they wrap up the budget, he said.
The ideas focus on bolstering county health departments and other local centers that help the uninsured.
The panel is withholding its final vote on the budget plan until Bredesen gives them a detailed accounting of what will be done with the extra TennCare spending. Some of the money would be used to spared 97,000 “medically needy” enrollees from the planned cuts
In the House, the Finance Committee hasn’t yet voted on the budget bill
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On the Net:
See SB2316/HB2332 at: http://www.legislature.state.tn.us/