By AP
Nashville, TN – Republican Gov. Bill Haslam is stressing in budget hearings that the state can't afford to meet all the spending requests from state agencies seeking to avoid the deepest cuts delayed by the federal stimulus plan. Officials with the state health and education departments on Monday made their case for finding other sources of state money to replace the federal funds. But Haslam said he will have to prioritize among the two dozen state departments' budget requests as he expects state revenue growth to fall far below the more than $1.5 billion in federal stimulus money that won't be available in the spending year that begins July 1. Haslam said he will continue his predecessor's practice of paying for the full growth and inflation in the state's education funding formula, and that he won't seek to look to cut the state's pre-kindergarten program.