‘Too many cooks …ruin the sauce’

Without a doubt the most important duty state lawmakers have is to ride herd on the state budget with oodles of your money in play...$83 billion oodles in fact.

With 148 legislators in the house and senate, not everyone has a direct hands-on assignment under the heading, “too many cooks could ruin the sauce.” The heavy lifting, instead, goes to the 19 senators and 29 house members who reside on the appropriations committees.

To be sure the rest of the lawmakers have input on what their districts need or want but at the end of the day the budget folks wield the most power on where your tax dollars go.