The Iowa House and Senate have preliminary agreed on an overall budget for the 2016 fiscal year.

District 47 Representative Chip Baltimore says leadership in both the House and Senate came to agreement on the overall budget of $7,168,144,634.  The House’s original position was spending an additional $180 million, while the Senate’s proposal was spending an additional $408 million.

Baltimore states that the agreement has to be approved by both the full House and Senate before budget bills can be passed through their respective conference committees.  The new fiscal year starts on July 1st, but Baltimore says he’s been through this process before.  In 2011, the House adjourned for the year on June 30th, right before the start on the next fiscal year.

He tells Raccoon Valley Radio what may happen if the new fiscal year starts without a new budget.

“Go through the process of figuring out what the essential services are of state government that we’re going to continue to fund.  We’ve got some surplus funds and some reserve funds that we can use to continue to fund those operations going forward until we actually do reach a budget resolution.”

Baltimore points out that prior to this week, the House has met a total of seven days as a full Chamber in May.