The state Senate today passed a 1.1 billion dollar general fund budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1st.
It passed on a 29-1 roll call vote, with Republican Kevin Mullin of Rutland voting no.
The budget calls for attempts to rein in Corrections Department spending by closing Vermont’s most expensive prison – the Dale Facility for Women, in Waterbury, and moving its inmates to Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility in Burlington.
It also provides $287 million for the education fund, in a bid to hold down local property taxes.
The budget now goes to a conference committee, where differences between the Senate bill and the House version will be ironed out.