Lawmakers finalize budget, include $500M for Titans stadium

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Tennessee lawmakers on Thursday finalized the state's $52.8 billion spending plan for the upcoming year, squeaking through $500 million in bonds to help pay for a Tennessee Titans stadium, as well as more money for education and law enforcement.

The budget now goes to Republican Gov. Bill Lee's desk, who is expected to sign off on the proposed budget even after the GOP-controlled General Assembly tweaked his original spending plan and included a contentious sentencing legislation that at times clashed with the governor's administration.

Back in January, Lee unveiled a budget measure that included pay increases for law enforcement and education workers, $750 million to change the K-12 school education funding formula, $200 million to relocate a handful of schools currently in flood plains, $150 million in grants to reduce violent crime, as well as enough money to make Juneteenth a state holiday.

Lawmakers have since stripped out the $200 million needed to relocate the flood plan-based schools and reducing the violent crime grant fund to $100 million. The effort to make Juneteenth an official state holiday also stalled, causing lawmakers to delete that budget item.

Meanwhile, the Legislature agreed to implement an $80 million sales tax holiday on groceries for all of August and spending $121 million so that Tennesseans will no longer pay the state portion of vehicle registration tags over the next year. In total, lawmakers approved approximately $300 million in tax cuts.

Yet the Republican-supermajority Legislature rebuffed several attempts from Democrats to include more funding for teacher pay, state employee salaries and an attempt to slash the governor's salary in half.

“I just want to go on the record and speak for the millions of...