Alva Review-Courier -

Members of the House of Representatives and the state Senate marked a major milestone this past week: we passed the budget for the next fiscal year, and we did so weeks ahead of the statutory mandate.

The budget includes increases for all state agencies, including a roughly 7 percent increase for the Department of Corrections and a 5 percent increase for the Department of Human Services.

All totaled, the state budget is $7.6 billion. For comparison, last year’s adjusted budget was $6.8 billion. The increased appropriations will be used for things like state employee salary increases as well as...