The regular legislative session ended on Friday, two days early, but they still haven’t passed a budget. Now what? Lawmakers announced last week that they were likely to go into at least one special session given the difficulty in budget negotiations up to this point. The Governor has announced that he will call legislators back for a 30-day special session on Wednesday, April 29. He will be bringing budget negotiators together before that, however, with the hopes of keeping conversations going.
We’re still hopeful that increases to the Emergency Food Assistance Program (EFAP) and State Food Assistance (SFA) will be at least partially funded in the final budget, since they were fully funded in the House budget. Unfortunately the Senate budget did not include additional funding for any hunger relief programs, an indication of their level of support for stopping hunger. Additionally, the Senate budget did not include additional revenue, which is critical for long term budget sustainability in our state.
While members are in negotiations, it’s a great time to continue reaching out to your legislators to let them know how important these programs are! You can send an email about the budget, and even though it’s past Tax Day, you can still give them a call and talk about the importance of new revenue.
