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2004 Budget Session
HB 1 and SF 1 were mirror bills introduced in the House and Senate that provided appropriations for the operation of state government for the next biennium, beginning July 1 2004 and ending June 30, 2006.
The process of developing this huge budget bill to fund state government began with Governor Freudenthal, who submitted his recommendations to the Joint Appropriations Interim Committee in late 2003.
Next, the Joint Appropriations Committee of the House and Senate held hearings on the bill. During these deliberations, the Joint Committee heard from Governor Freudenthal, state agency heads, and others. After the Committee hearings, Committee revised the bill and presented it in identical form to the House and to the Senate for introduction.
Then each chamber started its own amending process as the bill progressed through three readings (votes). During floor debate, legislators can offer amendments to add or subtract to any item in the budget bill.
When the two bills passed third reading (final vote) in each chamber, they were no longer identical, as different amendments were offered and passed or failed in each chamber. At that point, a conference committee, consisting of five Senators and five Representatives, was appointed to resolve the differences between the House and Senate versions of the bill.
Under the rules of the Legislature, the first conference committee was allowed to discuss only the differences in the bills. Items that were not amended by either chamber, or that were amended identically, could not be addressed by this first conference committee. Compromise on any issue required agreement by a minimum of three Senators and three Representatives.
After negotiating for three and a half days, the first conference committee did not arrive at a compromise bill, and was judged to be deadlocked. A second conference committee was be appointed as an open (or free) committee, which meant they were allowed to discuss and modify anything in the entire bill.
The second conference committee resolved the differences between the two versions of the bill, and the House and Senate both voted to accept the compromise bill.
The bill as finally accepted by both chambers included $57.5 million for cities, towns and counties for the biennium; $29.75 million for the community college endowment fund for the biennium; $14 million per year for the external cost adjustment for K-12 schools; $371 million for school capital construction and major maintenance for the biennium; $4.6 million for community colleges in general appropriations and $8.7 million for major maintenance for the biennium; and $16.6 million for increases in health insurance premiums for state employees (maintaining the 85% individual and 85% family contribution by the state) for the biennium.
On the budget bill, the Governor can exercise a line-item veto, which means he can veto specific portions of the bill while accepting the rest. Governor Freudenthal chose to exercise his line item veto on two items in the bill.
One of Governor Freudenthal's vetoes removed an amendment to divert coal lease bonus money from the school capital construction account to the budget reserve account. Governor Freudenthal wanted the revenue, estimated at $120 to $150 million, to continue to flow into the school capital construction account, to build up reserves to fund the last three years of Wyoming's five-year school construction plan.
The Governor's other veto will allow about $2.8 million to be spent on early education programs and on helping school districts align their coursework with state performance standards.
The Legislature chose not to challenge either of the Governor's vetoes, so the bill became law as Governor Freudenthal signed it.