Administration presents budget amendment with $315M nonrecurring funds, new spending priorities and higher-education capital needs

The administration presented its amendment to the FY‑26 budget to the Senate Finance, Ways and Means Committee, describing a plan that relies mainly on nonrecurring resources and adds targeted spending for health, education, infrastructure and justice priorities.

Commissioner Bryson, presenting the administration amendment, told the committee the amendment assumes slow tax growth and focuses on “nonrecurring opportunities using cash in hand,” citing $115 million in department reversions and $200 million in treasurer’s earnings that together provide about $315 million in nonrecurring funding. Bryson said recurring available funds are limited and that the amendment contains roughly $30.9 million in recurring availability after adjustments.

Major allocations described in the presentation included $28 million in state provider-stability funding for nursing homes (described as matchable with federal funds to produce roughly $81 million in total support), $20.7 million to buy back a hospital assessment that can be matched to produce about $58 million in total for hospitals, $10 million for mental-health infrastructure for children’s hospitals, $20 million added to school-safety grants and $20 million for the charter schools facility fund. The amendment also adds $25 million nonrecurring for general-aviation airport maintenance, keeping an existing program at about $50 million, and contains directed appropriations for a handful of projects Bryson cited by name.

On criminal-justice and court-related spending, Bryson described a $17 million package for indigent-representation reform — $13 million recurring and $4 million nonrecurring — intended to shift some jurisdictions away from hourly fee systems toward longer-term contracts and a conflict-counsel model under the Administrative Office of the Courts.

Bryson also described a $20 million nonrecurring victim-services match to help local providers meet VOCA (Victims of Crime Act) matching requirements; a $10 million allocation to begin AI implementation across state services; and a $100 million seed allocation toward a regional water project that would connect the Cumberland River to southern Middle Tennessee (described as seed money toward an estimated $1 billion infrastructure project to relieve pressure on the Duck River).

Budget math and debt: Bryson said the amendment leaves a small recurring cushion and a modest nonrecurring remainder after spending; he and staff showed the state remains well under the funding board’s 6 percent guideline for general-obligation debt service even with near‑term bonding proposals. The administration proposes nearly $1 billion in bonding in the amendment and described a conservative budgeting practice of initially putting 11 percent of a bond issuance into the budget to ensure coverage until market sales set the actual debt service amount.

Questions and outstanding items: Committee members pressed for additional detail on several items Bryson listed, including (a) the administrative costs of programs funded with treasurer-earnings, (b) line-item specifics such as a $1 million appropriation to “Church of God in Christ” (added in amendment and未 detailed in the presentation), (c) whether smoking-cessation funds would also cover vaping cessation, and (d) why the administration declined approximately $70 million in available federal summer-food funding while proposing $3 million in state summer-food support. Bryson and staff said they would follow up with additional detail for committee members.

Higher-education capital: later in the same hearing the Tennessee Higher Education Commission presented capital-outlay priorities. THEC Executive Director Steven Gentile told the committee THEC recommended about $1.3 billion in capital funding this year and that the administration included roughly $600 million in projects in the amendment across eight projects, while THEC’s recommended capital maintenance need is much larger.

THEC noted it recommends roughly $335 million annually to meet ongoing capital‑maintenance needs across campuses but the amendment provides about $49.84 million in capital maintenance (a recurring item that THEC said has not been increased this year). THEC officials explained deferred-maintenance estimates across institutions range into the billions — the commission cited a $3.6 billion high-end deferred-maintenance figure for facilities scoring 80 or below — and warned limited recurring maintenance funding is increasing the number of buildings that reach “end of useful life” and require replacement.

THEC described the eight projects in the amendment (examples: a replacement chemistry facility at the University of Tennessee Knoxville; research modernization work at the University of Memphis; TCAT Nashville replacement campus; and an expanded aviation facility for TCAT Memphis) and stressed that most projects funded were intended to replace or substantially modernize facilities that have reached the end of useful life. THEC officials and committee members urged caution about relying on one‑time treasury earnings as recurring revenue and pressed the question of institutional capacity to execute large capital and maintenance programs.

What happens next: committee members asked for follow-up materials and line-item detail on several amendment appropriations and for written responses on the summer-food federal decision, the Church of God in Christ appropriation detail, the composition of nursing‑home match funding, and whether smoking‑cessation line items include vaping cessation. No formal committee vote on the administration amendment was taken during the session; commissioners and staff will provide follow-up documents to the committee.