General Assembly Leaders Confident of Budget Resolution

From Kentucky Public Radio's Tony McVeighKentucky House and Senate leaders are preparing for five weeks of intensive work, now that they have a broad budget outline.House Democrats and Republicans were briefed on the budget outline Thursday and Speaker Greg Stumbo expects a budget bill to be out by the middle of next week. The spending plan is still around 200-million dollars short in the second year, but Stumbo’s not worried about that.“I think before we leave here, we’ll probably have that closed – actually closed," says Stumbo. "Because we are looking at some other options for savings, but we just didn’t have all the data to roll them out at this time.”Senate President David Williams agrees, saying lawmakers still have plenty of time to search for additional efficiencies. The House hopes to have the budget to the Senate by the first week of March.