BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) - As they patched together a $26 billion budget in the final days of the legislative session, lawmakers
warily looked to next year with worries they won't be able to piecemeal their way out of a looming crisis.

A central part of the House and Senate budget dispute involved planning for the "cliff year," as it's commonly called - when the loss of a billion dollars in federal stimulus money and other one-time state money propping up agencies will leave a crater in
the budget.