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Committee adopts capital budget and omnibus bonding measures and forwards both bills
Summary
The committee approved a member‑driven capital bill (HB 2, Member Set 2587) and the omnibus bond act (HB 3) and moved technical staff authority for drafting; both measures were reported favorably.
The committee considered House Bill 2 (comprehensive capital budget) and House Bill 3 (omnibus bond act, funding mechanism). Chair Emerson described the capital package as member‑driven and focused on core infrastructure priorities, including roads, bridges, water and sewer projects. The committee adopted a distributed member amendment set (Member Set 2587) that incorporated projects and used available bonding capacity; staff explained the package responded to about 1,971 requests and included roughly 775 projects prior to amendment.
Division of Administration staff said the bill uses available P‑1 bonding capacity (new project authority) and included some P‑2 projects to balance capacity and allow priorities to proceed. The committee gave staff permission to make technical cleanup edits to the bill language and voted to report both HB 2 (as amended) and HB 3 favorably. Chair Emerson asked to make HB 3 a special order on the House floor.
Why it matters: HB 2 and HB 3 are the capital‑budget and bond measures that authorize the state’s borrowing and project funding; moving them from Ways and Means is a key step in the budget and capital process.
Details: the chair said bonding capacity used this year totaled about $552 million for new P‑1 projects; Member Set 2587 captured projects prioritized by members and included some P‑2 projects to manage capacity; staff noted the bill reflects a prioritization exercise among nearly 2,000 requests.
