Reporters are getting a briefing on what the governor’s going to say tonight. The first ten minutes with the governor are on the record. The rest of it is embargoed until 5:00pm. I can’t promise the governor is going to say anything groundbreaking over the next few minutes, but I’ll live blog it anyway. Check back at 5 and I’ll have the rest up ASAP.
12:03am
“I think everyone knows we have a significant revenue issue this year.”
“We’re not going to solve this problem with new taxes.”
“Not going to dive into reserve funds.”
12:05
- still putting in significant funds into pre-K through inflationary increases, but no new classrooms.
-not going to have a complete description of the buyouts tonight.
-He’ll talk in general terms tonight about how the buyouts are going to work. They are going to identify the groups of employees that the state will offer the buyouts.
-Make the buyout offers on June 6th.
-State will know by end of July whether the buyouts were successful or not.
12:07am
-Large number of states looking at significant actions, like layoffs to deal with budget shortfall.
-”It is not something that is going to be offered to every employee.” (the buyouts)
-We’re not going to have the details of what the buyouts entail tonight. He says there are a lot of legal issues.
-”The general assembly unless they want to stay a lot longer is not going to have the details of the buyouts.”
-The governor will give lawmakers an idea of how much total money he wants to spend on the buyouts, but they are going to have to do it without the details.
-The governor says dipping into the rainy day fund is the type of stuff that leads to income tax proposals and all of those things.
We’re all done! Check back at 5:00pm!
Hey Cara! Are you going to blog about the speech tonight? Thanks for these updates~