Hards Times Means Budget Cuts For Tennessee

To fill a near half-billion dollar hole in the state budget, Bredesen proposes scale backs in several areas, starting with TennCare.

Bredesen notes, "No enrollees are lost or benefits changed to achieve this; it comes from deferring a portion of the growth in the medically needy program that we recently had approved."

And then there's the scale backs in education.

The plan will provide more than a hundred million dollars towards closing the budget gap.

Bredesen says, "What we have had to forgo this year is any further filling out of the BEP 2.0 framework or any further expansion of pre-k classrooms."

State Senator Andy Burke says, "The BEP 2.0 money is there for a reason. Its there because our kids need those dollars and we're gonna have continue to fight for those next year."

Chester Bankston with the Hamilton Co. School Board finds, "We've already had to cut in a lot of different areas. What we don't want it to affect is the classroom."

Bredesen also plans to cut the state employee workforce by as many as 2-thousand people.

He asks the general assembly to approve 50 million dollars in reserve funds to enable voluntary employee buyouts.

Bredesen says, "Over the next three weeks, I am asking our department heads to identify categories of employees, either by classification or business unit, which they in their business judgment feel can most easily be reduced while minimizing the impact on the public."

If not enough people choose the buyout, the governor predicts layoffs this summer.

Burke adds, "People across the country are hurting, when business is hurting, when consumers are hurting, the State's also gonna hurt."

Now despite the cuts, Bredesen wants to set aside a hundred million dollars for economic development projects.