By Charles Wolfe
Associated Press

FRANKFORT - Gov. Ernie Fletcher said Friday he was willing to accept a state budget without a tax plan - provided the budget wasn't laden with projects and didn't spend a lot of one-time money for recurring expenses.

But if a budget bill is to be laden with projects, a tax plan would have to be included, Fletcher said in a news conference.

The General Assembly adjourned without a budget April 13. Senate Republicans, in league with Fletcher, had insisted on a budget bill that included Fletcher's plan for a new tax code.

House Speaker Jody Richards and other House leaders refused, and each side blamed the other for the stalemate.

Fletcher proposed a "revenue neutral" plan in which some taxes on businesses and individuals would be raised and others would be cut. Income taxes would be cut, for example, but taxes would go up on tobacco and alcoholic beverages, among others.

House Democrats, in an election year, focused on the increases and rejected them. Before adjourning, the House passed a bill with the corporation taxes. The Senate did not take it up.

On Friday, Richards asked Fletcher for a meeting aimed at ending the impasse, and Fletcher said he accepted. Richards wants Fletcher to call the General Assembly back into session.

Fletcher said he and Senate Republicans were willing "to have a budget that doesn't have the bonding, the projects and everything else.

"But I think it would be unwise for us to open up negotiations on a budget that had any projects - period - without the understanding that we needed tax modernization," Fletcher said.

Fletcher said there was one possible exception - a technical school at Bowling Green, Richards' hometown, to serve the needs of Magna International, which plans to build a truck frame plant.

Without an enacted budget, the state could not sell new bonds with which to finance the $5 million project.

But Fletcher said it might be funded with cash or within an existing bond issue.

Money spent on the tech center "would be easily returned" through Magna's created jobs, Fletcher said.

Richards said he was "not in favor of any budget that doesn't have the Magna technical training center in it."

Beyond that, Richards would say only that the "huge issue with the House" in any budget bill would be the level of funding for education, including teacher salaries, and state employee salaries.

Fletcher said a no-projects budget would be bad for the state. "But if the House leadership is so adamant against working with me and the Republican leadership on tax modernization, then that is an option that we have given them," he said.

Fletcher said he and the House Democratic leadership - Richards, Speaker Pro Tem Larry Clark, Majority Leader Rocky Adkins, Whip Joe Barrows and Caucus Chairman Jim Callahan - probably would meet soon after the Kentucky Derby.

The 2002 General Assembly also failed to pass a budget, and then-Gov. Paul Patton ran the state on a spending plan for nine months.