Budget Battle Continues Between State Lawmakers

Senate leaders say they won't take up bills that will have an impact on the budget, without the House publicly releasing their budget.

House leaders say they gave the Senate a sneak peek at their numbers to discuss amongst themselves, but the House isn't ready to release them to the public.

Talking with leadership in both the House and Senate, it seems the main disagreement is over each chamber's budget process. The Senate has vowed to have the most transparent budget process in state history which meant releasing individual numbers for each state agency publicly.

"Same thing we said last week, if we didn't have the numbers to share publicly, it would undermine the transparency process," Senate Pro Tem Greg Treat said.

The House has had a more internal process saying they want to work with their caucus before they release budget numbers to the public.

"I guess I would say this bluntly - the House will roll out the House budget. The Senate needs to stop worrying about it. The Senate is not going to roll out the House budget," House Majority Floor Leader Rep. John Echols said.

House leaders also say they are ahead of schedule on this budget process internally, they are just not ready to release any final numbers to the public.