Lawmakers get $20 million budget amendment

Lawmakers were told this week they need to increase the proposed two-year budget some $20 million.

The key item on that list is $20.74 million increase in what it will cost to pay the Public Employees Retirement System rate increase for teachers. Deputy Budget Director Andrew Clinger said the original budget was calculated like all other agencies with the state paying half of the contribution and the employee responsible for the other half. But teachers receive 100 percent of their contribution.

In addition, lawmakers were told Tuesday morning there probably will have to be another adjustment in the distributive school account to make up for a shortfall in sales tax revenues. Deputy Superintendent of Education Doug Thunder told the legislative money committees current projections show the state may have to add another $18 million to the distributive school account.

Lawmakers were told they'll have to add $1.37 million to the prison medical care budgets over the next two years based on the actual inflation rate in those costs during Fiscal Year 2002.

But those costs were partially offset by a $1,011,056 decrease in the state's mental health budgets and a cut of $977,587 from the university system. The mental health budgets were adjusted downward to reflect the actual average cost per client of medications. The university system savings were generated by adjusting vacancy savings requirements for non-formula budgets -- a technical adjustment designed to match those requirements to those imposed on other agencies.

Clinger said most of the other changes on the list of some 46 adjustments are small technical corrections -- some as low as $4 a year -- and that most of them reduce rather than increase the total budget.

The net increase in costs to the two-year budget is $19.6 million.

However, Clinger also told lawmakers the adjustments to public safety budgets will cause a decrease in the projected revenues from that department of $292,160 over the biennium.

This is the first in what is normally a series of small adjustments as errors are discovered and projections improved through the budgetary process.