State Representative Ryan Williams said he is glad to have the $59.8 billion state budget for fiscal year 2026 passed.
State Representative Ryan Williams was at the forefront of the budget as Governor Bill Lee appointed Williams as the chair of the Finance, Ways, and Means budget subcommittee. Williams said though the budget is passed, the madness of putting a budget together does not stop.
“You know, it’s just like anything else, you do take a deep sigh of relief and thank the speaker and member for entrusting you with this huge responsibility, but it seems like when you’re on finance, the work is never done, but we will celebrate passage on the floor for a few days and the get right back at it on Monday,” Williams said.
Williams said the highlights of the budget included allocating $1.5 billion towards TDOT for road infrastructure and $270 million to fully fund the HIP program, which is for uncompensated care for TennCare and Medicare patients. Williams said he feels like the budget is in good shape.
“The legislator, particularly the House and Senate, worked extremely well,” Williams said. “Our finance staff worked really well together this year, probably knock on wood, probably one of the most fruitful that we’ve had in all of the years that I have been involved with putting the budget documents together, so I feel really good where we are.”
Many people have been concerned about how federal cuts would affect the state’s budget. Williams said the cuts had very little impact on the 2026 fiscal year budget.
“Most of the federal cuts that we’ve seen have impacted those federal dollars which they sent down years ago because of covid where they were unused or uncommitted, and they clawed back those revenues,” Williams said. “There was about $ 120 million in education for different programs and $150 million for the Department of Health, but because we didn’t use those revenues or commit those revenues, there was little impact to our state’s budget at this point.”
Williams said legislators will have concerns about federal cuts when it comes to the next budget and years down the road. Williams said state legislators will have to be mindful of what is going on in regards to the federal government, especially in regards to healthcare.
