The Senate Budget and Taxation Committee convened to hear recommendations from its subcommittees today, and had been scheduled to make full committee decisions on the budget and reconciliation bill this afternoon. Instead, the Committee made some select decisions, but deferred others until its newly scheduled work session for 2pm tomorrow.

Among the changes that the Committee did adopt was a change to the “cap” applied to the Disparity Grant program. The new cap would be applied to the full amount of the program, rather than to each jurisdiction. This concept was detailed in the DLS budget analysis of the Disparity Grant here.

In addition, the Committee adopted an amendment to the BRFA bill to recalculate the Disparity Grant using an adjusted date for calculating net taxable income, which will substantially increase the amount of the grant for FY 2011. A Supplemental Budget from the Governor is required to effect this funding increase, and is widely expected.

For more background on the Disparity Grant issue, see previous MACo blog coverage, as well as the DLS budget analysis that details the changes in wealth calculation that largely triggered the stir over FY 2011 funding for this and other programs.