The state budget must be in place by June 30, which means lawmakers have little time to reconcile the very different budgets that came out of the Democrat-dominated House and the Republican controlled Senate. The state has had interim budgets in the past, and while Senate President Bill Harris says it's important to have a contingency plan, he wants to - in his words - accomplish the mission.
State lawmakers missed the June 30 budget deadline in 1981 and 1991. In both those years, the state was struggling with a recession, and the House was controlled by Democrats and the Senate by Republicans.
Harris says he'd like to be optimistic, but he says he can't be. He says that considering the budget slashing that's been done already, the process of reconciling the budget is going to be tough.
If the budget isn't passed by both the Democrat-controlled House and Republican-dominated Senate and signed by the governor by June 30, lawmakers may have to pass interim budgets to keep the government going.