INDIANAPOLIS | The Indiana Senate's top fiscal leader test drove the one-year $14.5 billion state budget approved by the House but indicated Thursday he will trade it in for something more practical.

Senate Appropriations Chairman Luke Kenley, R-Noblesville, listened while House Ways and Means Chairman William Crawford, D-Indianapolis, explained the economic uncertainties that fueled the decision to veer away from a traditional two-year budget.

Kenley said he sympathized with House budgeteers who were "shooting in the dark" when they crafted the one-year plan with limited knowledge of the then-pending federal stimulus package. Lawmakers also are waiting on an April revenue forecast that will give them a better sense of how anemic state tax collections might be in the next two years.

In addition to offering a one-year spending plan, House Democrats proposed tapping $200 million of the state's $1.2 billion in reserves and starting work on $750 million in construction projects, mostly on university campuses.

"Capital projects create jobs and create jobs right now," Crawford said. "We wanted to join in stimulating jobs."

Kenley questioned Crawford about a House budget provision that could steer more than $40 million in state grants to Gary and other local governments that face budgets losses from new property tax caps. Crawford said the provision was intended to spur action by a state panel that has been reviewing Gary's petition for tax cap relief since early December.

"We were trying to prompt the Distressed Unit Appeals Board to move," Crawford said.

Kenley has said Gary's budget problems instead could be addressed by the imposition of a Lake County income tax. Lake is the only one of Indiana's 92 counties without such a tax.