Senate GOP Leader Jerry Behn of Boone describes the split-control Legislature's difficulty in shutting down its session for a second straight year as "limping" to the finish.

As the calendar turns to May, much of state government's attention will be squarely focused on the $27.1 billion proposed spending plan for the upcoming fiscal year.

Mississippi lawmakers approved most parts of a $5.6 billion budget with only a few arguments about the level of education funding and whether to set aside money for an anticipated legal fight over voter ID.

Gov. Bobby Jindal's administration is planning to fill a $210.5 million shortfall in revenue this year solely through cuts and consolidation even as legislators are warming to the idea of using the state's "rainy day fund" to keep the state in the black through the end of June.

The $8.5 billion compromise plan for the budget year that begins July 1 is less than either side had originally wanted to spend and is projected to provide the state with a $250 million surplus.

A panel of Republican and Democratic lawmakers reached an agreement late Friday that will restore funding for key projects in Gov. Bill Haslam's more than $31 billion spending plan.

The state's General Fund, which funds most noneducation programs in the state, gets very little sales tax revenue. It faces a cut of more than $342 million, a 20 percent reduction, in the 2013 budget.

The budget bill approved by the House includes virtually everything that Haslam wanted, along with some additions.

Lawmakers are weighing whether to use Louisiana's "rainy day" fund to help fill a $211 million gap in this year's budget.

Leaders mum on details; vote could come soon.

After waiting for more than two years, state lawmakers say they are now ready to consider reforms for the five public employee retirement systems that cover 1.7 million Ohio workers, retirees and beneficiaries.

With state revenues slowing to a trickle as the end of April draws near, the state's top fiscal analyst said that California could be "a few billion dollars" shy of Gov. Jerry Brown's budget projections through June 2013.

Around midnight Wednesday, House members voted 150-4 to approve the spending plan for fiscal 2013, with four Republicans dissenting.

Teacher and public-employee pensions are in the news nationwide, and Michigan's are not unique. Across the country, pension funds are suffering from the same confluence of factors, including rising health-care costs, falling returns on investment, lax oversight and more.

State budget dispute appears to be tied more to principle than actual money.

The state would close and privatize a 1,300-bed prison in Ionia and three juvenile detention facilities and make significant cuts to prison support staff under budget bills moving quickly through the Legislature.

Gov. John Kasich, who came into office vowing to curb the influence of special interests on the state budget, blasted House Republicans Wednesday for passing a version of his mid-budget review that includes $30 million in new funding for nursing homes.

In the long term, the decline in the sector's operating balance is primarily driven by the rising health-related costs of state and local expenditures on Medicaid and the cost of health care compensation for state and local government employees and retirees.

Though state revenues are ticking up slightly, the Government Accountability Office's annual report on state and local fiscal health predicts bigger budget gaps than projected this time last year. The primary driver: rising health care costs, particularly in the Medicaid program.

The Louisiana House is debating the merits of letting a private firm replace the state's corrections employees.