Department of Health and Human Services Chief Financial Officer Donna Auckland presented the committee with a month-by-month accounting of salaries and the department's FTE usage and vacancy data.

Auckland said the department's Salaries and Wages Block Grant appropriation for the biennium is $611,513,739 and that available general-fund and other funds are accounted for through quarterly journal vouchers to align revenue collections with expenditures. She told the committee the budgeted FTE total is 2,688.35 and that actual hired FTE on September reporting stood at approximately 2,515.1.

The department reported hiring and termination activity for July and August (e.g., July hires: 43; July terminations: 21.5; August hires: 47.8; August terminations: 42.9) and said it had not added or removed any full-time positions outside the appropriated FTE pool. Auckland said no line-item transfers have been requested to date.

Why it matters: The block grant provides broad flexibility for staffing across the department's divisions (behavioral health, medical services, public health, etc.), and legislators asked for transparency regarding vacancies, hiring and salary spending. Auckland said the department uses an internal FTE committee to review requests for reallocations and that certain new hires for the rural health transformation program would require additional authority or a funding adjustment to the block grant line.

Next steps: The department will continue monthly reporting on FTE and salary spending and said it will provide more detailed strategic allocation information on request.

Quote: "We have not made any line item transfers to our budget so I have nothing to date," Donna Auckland said in the presentation.