The House and Senate can’t seem to agree on the state’s $31 billion budget and will likely form a smaller group to work out the differences. The upper chamber passed a spending plan for next year before noon and within 90 minutes, the lower chamber voted not to go along.

Thursday the House passed a version of the budget that cut out $1.7 million of mostly local projects that had been in the Senate plan. Friday the Senate sent back options, says Bo Watson of Chattanooga.

“We’ve given them our original agreement that we had, going into the budget process, and we’ve given them some additional cuts that they might want to look at.”

The biggest difference is that the Senate’s plan has a $12 million reduction for the Memphis Regional Megasite.

The two chambers still have to reconcile difference likely in a conference committee before the measure heads to the governor’s desk. When the two chambers reach agreement on the budget, the General Assembly is free to adjourn for the year.

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The appropriation bill, HB 3835 Sargent/ SB 3768 Norris, was once more held up by a floor fight by senators trying to restore funding for the Taft Youth Development Center, scheduled to be shut down by the administration. That attempt failed, just as it had failed previously in the House.

Taft is the maximum security facility for youth incarcerated in the state’s Children’s Services Department.