RE: 2024-25 Budget Act AgreementBudget Act Agreement • June 28th, 2024
Contract Type FiledJune 28th, 2024In a strong and unexpected show of cohesion, the Senate, Assembly, and the Administration made comparatively quick work of the negotiations to settle the details of the 2024 Budget Act. This year, the Governor and the Legislature faced the first truly difficult year for budget deliberations in more than a decade, after a prolonged period of economic recovery following the height of the Great Recession. Leaning on relatively recent memory, the magnitude of the state’s budget problem and reconciliation of the differences between the Governor’s May Revision budget proposal and the Legislature’s Joint Budget Plan seemed like a formidable task for a scant two-week window of time. It would have been understandable, although unwelcome, for negotiations to linger into early July or beyond. Regardless of the tidiness of the timing, budget negotiations throughout 2024 were notably marked by reflexive, lugubrious accounts of fiscal fortitude and wistful glances at the future.