Governor's Budget Recommendation

Governor Romney filed his FY2006 budget recommendation yesterday. Known as House 1, this bill starts the budgetary process for the next fiscal year which begins on July 1, 2005 and ends on June 30, 2006. The Governor’s proposal is really just a recommendation to the state legislature, because the House of Representatives and the Senate create the final state budget. (The Governor certainly retains his veto authority, so he continues to play a role in the process, as well). Now, the House and Senate will both formulate their own budgets. If both of these bodies agree on the funding for a certain entity, then that agreed amount will be in the final budget. But because the priorities of the House and Senate sometimes differ, any items that don’t agree (that is, if the House recommends one amount, but the Senate recommends another) that item must go to a Conference Committee. That committee is made up of a handful of key members from both houses. They work together to resolve the differences. The report that ultimately is issued by the conference committee most likely becomes the final state budget. If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you know that we’ve been anxiously awaiting the governor’s budget to see if this registry’s funding was increased sufficiently to allow us to lease space for a new registry in the coming fiscal year. The governor did recommend a 12% increase in our budget which presumably is intended to begin funding the movement process. If the legislature concurs with the governor’s strategy of moving registries into leased space, perhaps this extra funding will carry over into the final state budget. You can see the governor's recommendation for each state registry by following the "What's New" link on the home page of our website (www.lowelldeeds.com).