House panel reviews updated Government Operations appropriations sheet, delays amendment

Members of the House Appropriations Committee's Government Operations Division on Friday reviewed a revised appropriations "long sheet" for the Government Operations Division and agreed to defer moving an amendment until the full membership is present.

The committee discussed renumbered sections of the revised sheet and several line-item and carryover provisions, including one-time funding for IT projects, a change to membership on the legislative IT committee, continuing appropriations meant to prevent double billing, and language updates to portions of the North Dakota Century Code.

The chairman opened the discussion by saying the committee had a new, simplified long sheet for 2021 and asked Representative Bosch whether she had reviewed it. Representative Bosch replied, "I have looked at it a couple times, and I think the committee did a great job. I don't see anything that I would change. And, I don't know. I'm feeling pretty good about it, to be honest with you." Bosch later said the committee should walk through renumbered sections while present.

The draft identifies $3,512,000 in one-time funding and describes two transfers tied to IT work. Committee discussion named two $1,700,000 transfers described as covering a data center migration and licenses for ServiceNow. The transcript does not specify how those two $1,700,000 amounts reconcile with the $3,512,000 total; the additional amount, if any, is not specified in the discussion.

Committee members also discussed a removed $3,000,000 transfer that had previously appeared on an earlier sheet and therefore no longer requires a separate section on the draft. The draft retains standard language, including section language that allows the director of the Office of Management to transfer between line items, described in committee discussion as "standard language."

A staff member from Legislative Council explained the proposed renaming of a fund as housekeeping to align statutory terminology with current usage. As the staff member told the committee, "Part of our process at Legislative Council is when we're amending North Dakota Century Code, if we see sections of code that maybe need to be updated for terminology that is no longer used or just maybe technical corrections, things of that nature, if there is an opportunity to clean up the code where we can, then we'll do so."

Section-by-section items the committee discussed include:

- Adding one member from the Department of Human Services to the legislative IT committee as a nonvoting technical advisor to assist with the mainframe migration.

- A continuing appropriation provision intended to stop double billing related to ongoing IT work.

- Carryovers of prior appropriations into the next biennium for several federal- and state-funded projects: unused coronavirus funds for broadband infrastructure grants; remaining authority from the gateway enterprise project; carryover for the "lighthouse" project from the '23 biennium into the '25/'27 biennium; and a referenced carryover tied to the federal Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program. During discussion the draft referenced approximately $147,000,000 for BEAD-related authority to carry over; the committee characterized the BEAD amount as tied to federal digital equity programs but did not provide additional documentation in the meeting.

- A continuing appropriation of $487,520 for a cybersecurity grant program and an $80,000 carryover for a siren project, with subsection language for a study on how future siren fees will be handled and a reporting requirement directing coordination between the Department of Public Instruction and the Information Technology Department on the PowerSchool-to-Infinite Campus transition.

Committee members noted a small attendance at the meeting and opted not to move the amendment. The chairman said they would "hold on to it" and bring the item back when more members are present; a member suggested sharing the long-sheet print with colleagues so questions on the floor or in full committee could be answered. The meeting closed with members expressing satisfaction with the organization of the draft and plans to reconvene with a full panel.

Quotes in this article are drawn from committee remarks during the long-sheet review segment of the Government Operations Division meeting.