Yesterday’s House General Budget Meeting

The House Government Appropriations Committee met yesterday to discuss, among other issues, the State General Fund Budget.

If you find government budgeting complicated under normal circumstances, the 2010 and 2011 budgets are even more complicated with the addition of approximately $3 billion stimulus dollars coming into Alabama from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

The rough breakdown of the $3 billion has been discussed in previous posts, but it is important to know the federal government provided strict guidelines and formulas in regard to where the dollars should go. They are also requiring state agencies that receive these dollars to provide feedback data in terms of how many jobs have been created and / or saved by the stimulus money coming into our state.

To summarize the current proposed budget for 2010 (including stimulus dollars), the State General Fund will see an increase of $579,234,602** over the 2009 budget (after reductions for the Governor’s Deficit Reduction Plan in which state agencies were asked to make budget cuts).

Debate has not yet begun on the budgets before the full House membership. With the Governor having sent 4 proposed budgets to the House thus far due to changes and updates with stimulus dollars, these numbers will likely change before final approval.

**This number was derived by taking the 2009 Budgeted State General Fund after reductions of $1,967,253,049 and subtracting that from the Government Appropriations Committee Substitute General Fund Budget for 2010 including stimulus dollars of $2,546,487,651.