Montgomery, AL – Gov. Robert Bentley is facing a Wednesday night deadline to either sign the two state budgets passed by the Legislature or send them back to the Legislature with recommended changes.
Bentley's press secretary, Jennifer Ardis, says Bentley won't sign the budgets unless the Legislature passes several bills to make them balance, including one requiring state employees and education workers to pay more toward their retirement benefits.
The chairman of the Senate's General Fund committee, Arthur Orr, says he and House chairman Jim Barton met with Bentley and the governor discussed sending the budgets back to the Legislature with executive amendments that will make across-the-board cuts if the accompanying bills don't pass. That maneuver would give the Legislature two days to try to pass the accompanying bills.
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