Topeka — The House gave first-round approval Wednesday to a $9.15 billion state budget that had bipartisan support and attracted few attempts to add money to it.
The voice vote advanced the spending bill to final action, set for today. The bill would appropriate almost as much money for fiscal 2002 as is in the current budget.
"It is a good, bipartisan effort," Rep. Rocky Nichols of Topeka, the ranking Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, said of the budget.
The Senate approved its own version of the budget, also about $9.15 billion, on Tuesday. Senate Democrats criticized it as too small, conservative Republicans as too big.
Final House action on its version would be followed by negotiations between the two chambers. The final spending recommendations would then be added to an unrelated measure to pay legal claims against the state which already has passed each chamber, but in different versions.
Both chambers stuck close to Gov. Bill Graves' recommendations, partly because it remains uncertain how much money the state will have to spend in fiscal 2002. State officials and university economists plan to meet April 4 to draft new estimates.
From November through February, revenue collections fell nearly $50 million short of expectations.
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