Bredesen's Budget Delays Worry Local Government Officials

KINGSPORT, Tenn. – Gov. Phil Bredesen said Wednesday he’ll delay presenting Tennessee’s budget to the state legislature until late March as he waits to see how the federal economic-stimulus package will impact a projected $900 million state funding shortfall.

“It makes no sense to have a budget out there that scares everybody to death when it does not represent what is actually out there,” Bredesen said at a luncheon hosted by the Kingsport Chamber of Commerce.

The delay, which could push the Tennessee General Assembly’s budget deliberations to May, has some local officials worried that they won’t be able to start their budget processes until late summer.

“[The delay] could be a challenge for us,” Sullivan County Mayor Steve Godsey said Wednesday. “It could be August before we take our budget up.”

Bredesen said he’d have to cut funding for every state program except K-12 education and corrections by 14.8 percent to make up for the projected deficit. The state also would have to lay off about 2,300 employees to balance the budget, Bredesen said.

“These are treacherous financial waters,” Bredesen said. He added the state could survive the tight economic situation, but it would require “some difficult and painful cuts.”

While Bredesen’s been considering those cuts, the U.S. Congress has been ironing out the details of an $800 billion economic stimulus package proposed by U.S. President Barack Obama. The package includes about $3.8 million in aid for the state of Tennessee over the next two years.

On Friday, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the package with Tennessee’s state aid intact. The U.S. Senate is now considering the matter.

Bredesen said he wanted to see the changes the U.S. Senate would make to the package before he went ahead with the state budget presentation. He’s already delayed the presentation once – pushing it to Feb. 9 – using the same line of reasoning.

Bredesen also said he talked about extending the delay with Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey and House Speaker Kent Williams over breakfast Wednesday. Both legislators were confident they’d have their budgets in less than two months after they received the original budget proposal, Bredesen said.

“We can definitely get it done in six weeks, if not sooner,” said Ramsey, who represents Sullivan and Johnson counties in the state Senate.

Ramsey said both he and Williams would focus the General Assembly’s attention on pending legislation so they could get that out of the way before Bredesen presented his budget. The legislature will then exclusively deal with the budget for the rest of its session, he said.

News of the possible delay didn’t sit well with Sullivan County officials. Director of Schools Jack Barnes said that if the state didn’t finish its budget deliberations until May, “it will be June or July for us.”

State aid accounts for almost half of the county school system’s $90 million budget this year. Because of this, Barnes said, “it would be difficult for us to have a completed budget together” without knowing how much money the state would give local school systems.

Godsey said the delay would then carry over to the county commission and its budget deliberations, because the school system’s budget makes up about half of the county’s overall budget.

He said it would be hard for county commissioners to go about their budget process while they were still waiting to see what the school system would do with its budget.

However, this delay would be nothing new for the county commission, which did not have this year’s budget nor last year’s budget ready until its September meeting. Any local government that does not have a budget ready by Oct. 1 could see a drop in state funding for its school system.

During Wednesday’s lunch, Bredesen also addressed speculation he might be chosen to serve as the country’s next Secretary for Health and Human Services. According to an article that appeared in Wednesday’s edition of The Hill newspaper, Bredesen is one of five people whose names have been tossed around to hold that post now that Obama’s original pick, former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, removed his name from the running.

“I love my job here, but if somebody calls me I’ll talk to them,” Bredesen said after the luncheon.

Bredesen added that no matter who Obama’s pick was, he hoped that person could work in a bipartisan manner because “the time is absolutely right to make some changes to our health care system.”

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