The Ohio State Senate will spend a lot of time poring over hundreds of smaller policy proposals shoved into the 4,509-page budget bill.

Nebraska is seeing yet another federal funding cut to Medicaid this year, forcing lawmakers to reduce services or make up the difference with state dollars before they approve a new budget.

State lawmakers are going down to the wire to negotiate a budget deal, but they haven't even agreed on whether the numbers they're using are real or imaginary.

The pending pension reform proposal in the Illinois legislature means the state would still be left with enormous unfunded pension obligations.

The issue of double dippers has been a vexing one for state government as it has balanced the push for early retirements with the need to provide government services.

Proposal to shore up funds would increase retirement age.

Ohio House Republicans aren't moving forward with a Medicaid expansion, but they kept the door open.

The overall Florida state budget will be roughly $74 billion, but much of that is tied to trust funds and federal cash that lawmakers don't control. This year's $26.9 billion lawmaker-controlled portion of the budget is up from $24.7 billion last year.

The General Assembly's two budget-writing committees, having digested and reviewed Gov. Dannel P. Malloy's two-year nearly $49-billion budget, will offer their own versions of the tax-and-spending package today.

Both bills would keep the current "defined benefit" pension systems. These guarantee retirees a fixed lifetime pension based on a formula using their years of employment and the average of their highest years' salaries.

Representatives from California and two other states introduced a bill in Congress on Thursday that would strip states and cities of their right to issue tax-exempt bonds unless they first disclosed the true cost of their pension plans and whether they could pay it.

Both budget proposals in Indiana increase school funding by three-percent over the next two years, and accelerate the planned phaseout of the inheritance tax.

Tennessee lawmakers approved Gov. Bill Haslam's $32.7 billion budget for the state of Tennessee, including spending increases for government salaries, schools and health care.

Both legislative budgets for Washington state begin with a sizable overall increase in state spending, and both focus on school funding.

The base budget, which includes about $4.3 billion of revenue from state taxes and Lottery profits, is about $5 million less than the state budget in 2009-10.

Because state funding is often deferred for months, charter schools must take out bridge loans to pay the bills. The interest costs come at the expense of pupils.

A state budget that gives schools half the innovation money sought by the governor, scraps his plans to expand Medicaid and sends Planned Parenthood to the back of the line for public family planning dollars is expected to advance a step in the Ohio House.

Delaware tax revenues moved down slightly over the last month, erasing most of a small gain noted in March, budget analysts said Monday.

California taxpayers may see the municipal pension contributions they fund for the California Public Employees' Retirement System rise as much as 50 percent under a plan to fill $87 billion in unfunded obligations.

The Public School Employees' Retirement System has reported that shrinking school-district payrolls left $69 million in state reimbursement funds unspent in the year that ended June 30.