It’s been slow going so far at the State Capitol, as the current year’s budget has proven to be a particularly difficult puzzle to solve.

Ralph Watts, State Representative from the 19th District, says the first couple weeks of the current legislative session have been fairly frustrating, as they’ve been bogged down in discussions about the 2018 fiscal year budget. He says there’s different plans in both the House and Senate, and Governor Kim Reynolds also has her own ideas for budget cuts. They even differ on how much they think is needed to be made up on the current budget shortfall.

Watts says the one consensus they can find is that the state has big budgetary problems, and they must be addressed before they can move on. “It appears that we’re going to have to make about a $40-60 million reduction in the budget to fit within what the taxpayers have given us. That’s kind of slowed things down a little bit, and we haven’t even earnestly started discussion on the FY19 budget yet. So I hope that roadblock will be pretty well taken care of this next week.”

To learn more about the current legislative session, listen to Monday’s Perry Fareway Let’s Talk Dallas County program at RaccoonValleyRadio.com.