Schools would get some extra dollars under Holcomb’s proposed budget

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Schools would get an extra 150-million dollars next year under Governor Holcomb’s proposed budget, but other agencies would face a year of belt tightening. The Office of Management and Budget presented Holcomb’s two-year spending plan Wednesday to House and Senate budget leaders. The proposed budget would boost school funding by 150-million dollars — that’s a two-percent increase. But state spending on everything else would remain flat. Budget director Zac Jackson says the administration asked state agencies to cut their budget requests by 15-percent. Budgeters then went back and backfilled some of those cuts to make sure critical needs were covered. The proposal loosens the purse strings a little the second year, with another 77-million for schools and a 270-million-dollar increase for everything else.