Governor Phil Bredesen outlined his budget priorities today for the anticipated 170-million dollar surplus for next year.
Bredesen is allocating 27-million for higher education, 24-million for state employee pay raises, and another 24-million for various health care programs.
The Governor is also leaving 45-million dollars for the legislature to spend as it sees fit.
“I don’t know from what I’ve been described that this has been done before. We’ll have to see how it works. It will either start a gold rush or people will look at it and handle it appropriately”
Out of the extra revenue Bredesen will be using 18-million dollars for the rainy day fund, in addition to the 100-million dollars of TennCare reserves he’s moving into the fund. The combined total will bring the reserve to 500-million, the constitutional requirement of 5-percent.
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