2018-19 fiscal year - required reductions in departmental and executive branch budget requests

(1) (a) Except as otherwise provided in subsection (1)(b) of this section, for the 2018-19 budget year, each principal department of state government that submits a budget request to the office of state planning and budgeting shall request, when submitting the budget request, a total budget for the department that is at least two percent lower than its actual budget for the 2017-18 fiscal year. (b) The requirement specified in subsection (1)(a) of this section does not apply to the department of education created in section 24-1-115 (1) or the department of transportation created in section 24-1-128.7 (1). (2) The office of state planning and budgeting shall strongly consider the budget reduction proposals made by each principal department pursuant to subsection (1) of this section when preparing the annual executive budget proposals to the general assembly for the governor as required by section 24-37-302 (1)(g) and shall seek to ensure, subject to section 24-37-303, that the executive budget proposal for each department is at least two percent lower than the department's actual budget for the 2017-18 fiscal year.