The budget process is speeding up and is expected to rush into completion within the next 3 weeks. On May 8, 2017, the concensus revenue numbers were announced and were roughly $500 million short of expectations. This plunged the budget deficit jumped from $3.2 billion to $5.2 billion and every budget proposal released by the legislature and the Governor has sought state employee savings of roughly $750 million in each year of the biennium. The State and the SEBAC unions have been in a process of trying to find some common ground to address issues that have been consistently raised as problems with the affordability of employee benefits. This has been a very difficult process however there has been some agreement.
