For the second time in history, federal regulators have accused an American state of securities fraud, finding that Illinois misled investors about the condition of its public pension system from 2005 to 2009.

"For the third straight year, we are on track to pass a budget on time and the earliest budget in more than 30 years," State senator James Seward said.

A Republican-led House committee rejected efforts Monday by Democrats to restore federal money for family planning into the developing state budget, setting up a protracted debate over the issue.

Weekend discussions on fixing the financially troubled pension plans for state and local government retirees in Kentucky elicited starkly different reactions from the legislative leaders who attended.

Georgia House Appropriations Chairman Terry England predicts there will be little debate on the budget before the vote because tax collections have remained lean.

Job creation and education served as central themes throughout most governors' speeches, while many also touched on pension reform and Medicaid expansion.

The New Mexico Senate has approved a proposal that would allow former and current lawmakers to enroll in a state pension fund if they had failed to meet previous deadlines for joining the retirement system.

State government agencies in Iowa face the loss of $46.5 million because of forced federal budget cuts, but most Iowans won't see an negative impact on state services, the state's chief budget officer said Thursday.

A day after Gov. Pat Quinn upbraided lawmakers for inaction on the state's multibillion-dollar pension mess, House members found a proposal they could get behind, backing a measure to limit the salary on which a public employee's retirement benefits could be based.

A House panel will begin consideration of a proposal to end guaranteed pensions for new teachers and state and county employees.

Louisiana House Appropriations Committee Chairman Jim Fannin defended the use of one-time money to balance the state's budget, saying much of the money swept from other funds came from general operating fund revenues anyway.

From fiscal year 2003 through fiscal year 2012, state general fund budgets increased 34 percent, almost exactly in line with population growth and inflation. But that growth wasn't evenly shared across program areas.

Illinois Governor Pat Quinn unveiled what he called a "difficult" but "honest" budget on Wednesday, taking aim at legislators for their inability to take action on the state's $96bn unfunded pension liability.

Dan Villa, the governor's budget director, told the committee he mostly likes what he sees in HB2, as crafted by a half-dozen House-Senate budget panels the past two months.

The education cuts of nearly 3 percent are necessary because the state's annual pension payments - now more than $6 billion a year - will divert money from other government operations, Gov. Pat Quinn has said.

New state employees would have the option of a traditional pension or a defined contribution plan under a bill approved by the Oklahoma House.

Public pension benefits will cost taxpayers $2.9 billion over the next two years, but Oregon lawmakers looking to cut public-employee pension benefits face a difficult political and legal balance as they try to find a plan that saves money and can get through the Legislature, and survive a challenge to the state Supreme Court.

Hoping to pass a budget by March 21, legislative leaders met behind closed doors with Governor Andrew Cuomo on Monday. Everyone who emerged, including the governor, was vague about what was said. Cuomo even went so far as to call the meeting "uneventful."

Both state Democrats, GOP want to spend more on education than Gov. Kitzhaber has proposed.

The system had about 64.5 percent of assets needed to cover promises to current and future retirees as of July 1, 2012, compared with 67.5 percent a year earlier, when the gap stood at $41.7 billion, according to data posted on the state Treasury Department's website.