OLYMPIA Legislative leaders came out of their second budget meeting of the day without settling a key question for future negotiations: How much money should they plan to spend over the next two years?

But they did spend 29 minutes behind the closed doors of the governor's conference room Thursday afternoon involved in what House Appropriations Committee Chairman Ross Hunter called "a hard conversation about big issues."

The big issue about which they are conversing is how much money should be in the state's 2015-17 operating budget. Senate Republicans' latest budget plan is $37.9 billion; House Democrats are at $38.4 billion. While most of those amounts come from the latest projections of how much the state will collect on its current taxes and fees, the variations are largely the result of proposals to raise taxes or move money around in the state's various accounts which one side or the other wants to do, and the other does not.

Determining how much is in the budget is a necessary step before deciding how to spend it.

They'll be back Friday at 9 a.m. for another round.
 

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