Appropriations subcommittee reviews proposed FY26 changes to general government boilerplate

The House Appropriations Subcommittee on General Government heard a detailed briefing on proposed changes to budget “boilerplate” language across fiscal years during a committee meeting. Michael Knasson of the House Fiscal Agency presented a line-by-line comparison of enacted fiscal 2023 language, the current fiscal 2025 budget language and the executive recommendation for fiscal 2026, and committee members asked about deletions of reporting requirements and changes to contingency authorizations.

Knasson told the committee the packet compares three sets of boilerplate and highlights only sections where wording differs across years; where a column is blank, “it doesn’t mean that the section has been eliminated or deleted,” he said. The presentation ran through dozens of sections covering the Attorney General, Department of Civil Rights, Legislature, Department of State and the Department of Technology, Management and Budget (DTMB).

The presentation identified several substantive changes. For the Attorney General, a provision authorizing reimbursement of Third Circuit Court costs for SNAP/food-stamp fraud cases (up to $400,000) was removed because the court-ordered diversion practice ended years ago. The budget increases the cap on litigation expense…