The committee that recommends spending to the Legislature forwarded its two-year budget adjustments proposal to senators Monday.
Infrastructure funding was the priority this year within the state's $8.6 billion budget, with money proposed to fix levees around Offutt Air Force Base, to aid cities with economic development, to ease prison crowding and help build roads and repair and replace county bridges, said Appropriations Chairman Heath Mello.
The committee met the goal of leaving $10 million for any bills that might come out of the Revenue Committee or from senators' proposals for the remainder of the 2016 session.Â
It's Mello's last year as chairman of the committee, and he said he is optimistic the Legislature will look favorably on the adjustments offered in the middle of this 2015-17 budget.
"I anticipate we'll engage in some good ... floor debate on the budget proposal and LB960 (the transportation infrastructure bank), which is part of our budget recommendation," he said.
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The committee forwarded that bill, with a compromise amendment, to the full Legislature Monday on a 9-0 vote.
The budget adjustments were close to what was proposed at the beginning of the year by Gov. Pete Ricketts, with the committee adding some twists of its own with infrastructure funding.
As challenging as the year started off, Mello said, with a projected $132 million budget shortfall, he was happy to see the committee end on a positive note.
As he has done at least once in the past, Sen. Bill Kintner cast a vote against the budget package (LB956 and LB957). Both bills ended up passing on 8-1 votes.
Kintner said the two-year average increase in the budget is now at 3.7 percent. And the state is going into the next budget cycle with a projected $106 million budget shortfall.
The economic forecasting board met in February and was slightly pessimistic about sales tax projections, revising them downward by $20 million over the two years. But income taxes were projected to more than make up for ithat, with a predicted gain of $45 million.
Still, Kintner said, the future looks uncertain, and he would not support any new spending. The adjustment at the middle of the two-year budget should be for agency deficit funding requests only, he said.
"My stomach gets in knots looking at this thing," he said of the budget recommendations.
The budget will go to the Legislature Wednesday. Debate on the bills is expected to begin March 15.Â