Kirk Adams: Agreement reached on Arizona budget

Speaker of the House Kirk Adams (Photo by Josh Coddington/Arizona Capitol Times)

Arizona House Speaker Kirk Adams says the Legislature’s majority Republicans and Republican Gov. Jan Brewer have reached an agreement on a new state budget’s overall framework.

Brewer and lawmakers are working to close a projected $1.1 billion budget shortfall. They’ve been trying to bridge differences between Brewer’s proposal and an $8.1 billion budget plan approved by the Senate earlier this month.

Adams says some implementation provisions to include in the budget bills still are being drafted. About half of the overall savings would come from scaling back the state’s Medicaid program.

The House Appropriations Committee is scheduled to act Thursday on the budget-balancing plan. Passage by the full House would send the bills back to the Senate for approval of the negotiated changes.