Senate passes FY12 state budget bill

Following two days of debate, the Senate last night approved a $30.5 billion state budget for next year that includes the same level of funding for the main municipal and education aid accounts as proposed by the governor in January and approved by the House last month.

The budget would fund Chapter 70 education aid at $3.99 billion and the Unrestricted General Government Aid account at $834 million.

The House and Senate budget bills include different funding levels for several smaller but important local government accounts; these differences will have to be settled by a six-member budget conference committee later this month.

The Senate would fund the Payment-in-Lieu-of-Taxes program at $27.3 million, $2 million higher than the House amount, and the Shannon Anti-Gang Grant program at $5.5 million, $1 million more than the House.

The House, meanwhile, approved $213 million for the special education “circuit breaker” program, compared to the Senate level of $194 million; both, however, are higher than the fiscal 2011 level of $133 million.

Senate funding for regional school district student transportation is $3 million higher than the House amount.

Both the House and Senate budgets would cut local aid for the fourth straight year. While the state appropriation for Chapter 70 would increase by $139 million next year, funding for Unrestricted General Government Aid would be trimmed by $65 million (about 7 percent), for a total decrease of $481 million in this account since fiscal 2009.

The House and Senate budgets both rely on a modest draw from the state’s stabilization fund and on ambitious savings initiatives in state health insurance programs that will have to be tracked over the course of the year. Both bills are based on a state tax forecast developed in January of $20.5 billion, a modest increase.

The House and Senate also included provisions that would allow the state’s inspector general to oversee audits of affordable housing cost certifications under Chapter 40B. Other provisions would respond to unfunded mandates related to local landfill testing and reporting and create a public safety training fund.

The Legislature appears to be on track to send a final budget bill to the governor by late June so that it can become law by the start of the new fiscal year on July 1. The Legislature enacted state budget bills on June 24 last year and on June 19 in 2009.