Gov. Jim Douglas is meeting legislative leaders as we speak to discuss "a process" for how they might work out an agreement on the 2010 budget and avoid a veto of the budget bill.

Douglas, in an news conference this afternoon, outlined numerous areas of the budget the Legislature passed last week that he finds unacceptable, including a menu of consumption taxes and cuts to a scholarship program.

House Speaker Shap Smith and Senate leader Peter Shumlin, at a separate news conference, said they will urge him not to veto the bill. Failing that, they said, they will ask him to release a new proposed budget of his own.

Douglas said he is prepared to present a new budget package "pretty soon." Administration Secretary Neale Lunderville was flashing a folder with a spread sheet that showed 0 deficits for 2010 and 2011, but what else it shows he wasn't sharing.

_ Terri Hallenbeck

Labels: politics, vermont legislature