Va. budget negotiators reach deal

RICHMOND — Virginia House and Senate negotiators reached a budget deal on the eve of the General Assembly’s Saturday adjournment, agreeing late Friday on a package of amendments to the two-year, $85 billion spending plan approved last year.

Budget conferees earlier reached a deal on the most contentious aspect of the amendment plan, relating to Medicaid expansion. They struck a compromise that would allow a 12-member committee to authorize expansion of the federal health-care program for the poor, elderly and disabled if Washington allows Virginia to reform the way it is run in the state.

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Other details of the amendment deal were not immediately available.

House Appropriations Committee staff reached early Saturday were in the process of photocopying the conference committee report, a task that they had begun around 3 a.m. They were hoping to have copies available for all 140 members of the General Assembly before the start of the session at 10 a.m.