State House and Senate negotiators reached agreement Tuesday night on the final draft of a two-year state budget.
The state would spend $11.8 billion in fiscal year 2014 and $11.9 billion in fiscal year 2015. The budget is slightly more than Gov. Neil Abercrombie had proposed for 2014 but less than the governor had requested for 2015.
With the budget wrapped, lawmakers will have until a deadline on Friday to complete work on other bills before final votes next week, including early-childhood education, incentives for entrepreneurs and expanded film production tax credits.
Rep. Sylvia Luke, the lead House negotiator on the budget, and Sen. David Ige, the lead Senate negotiator, said they left about $30 million in the spending plan for lawmakers to divide between tax incentives and new state programs.
"As we said in the beginning, we wanted to make this a balanced and responsible budget. Just because the economy is improving doesn’t mean we’re going to fully fund whatever requests came down," Luke (D, Punchbowl-Pauoa-Nuuanu) told reporters.
Ige (D, Pearl Harbor-Pearl City-Aiea) said negotiators focused on process as well as product. Last year lawmakers had missed their own internal budget deadline, causing chaos in the final days before the session ended. Ige said he and Luke wanted a new blueprint, "focusing on doing the people’s business and putting that ahead of politics.
"I’m happy to report that there were no hostages taken in the budget."
The general fund portion of the budget, the part where lawmakers have the most discretion, is $6 billion for fiscal year 2014 — $95.5 million less than the governor proposed — and $6.1 billion for fiscal year 2015 — $166.9 million less than the governor had asked.
The capital improvement project budget is $2.2 billion in fiscal year 2014 and $843.8 million in fiscal year 2015. The state construction and special fund money includes $18.4 million in fiscal year 2014 for a new wing at Ewa Makai Middle School and $130 million in fiscal year 2015 for a new Kihei High School on Maui.
The separate Judiciary budget has $9 million in construction money in fiscal year 2015 for a new judiciary complex in Kona.
Budget negotiators also agreed to provide $30 million in construction money and $10 million in general fund money to nonprofits through grants-in-aid.