Lawmakers to begin work on identifying budget cuts

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Straus said the current budget is not in a state of crisis, but was not so optimistic about the 2012-2013 biennial budget. "We're trying to get ahead and see where the efficiencies can lead us in the next biennium. But it's not going to be anywhere close to the savings that we're going to have to find in the next biennium."

Offering testimony at the March 8 hearing will be the State Comptroller and officials of the Legislative Budget Board and numerous state agencies. Among them will be the Texas Department of Corrections, which has asked for a waiver from having to cut an additional 5 percent from its budget request, and the Texas Education Agency, whose 5 percent proposed cuts include numerous grant programs whose loss of funding will trickle down to the state's public schools.

"We'll get there," Straus said of the need to make cuts to balance the state's budget.