Appropriations committee advances bill to eliminate vacant FTPs and formalize travel reporting

The House Appropriations Committee voted to send House Bill 413 to the floor with a due-pass recommendation after a brief hearing in which committee staff described two main changes: eliminating vacant full‑time positions from agency budget submissions and expanding reporting on state employee travel.

The bill’s first section would require agencies to identify vacant full‑time positions (FTP) in their budget submissions and remove those positions—and the budgeted salary and fringe amounts—from the submission. “Vacant FTP identified in subsection 3 of this section shall be eliminated and the amount budgeted for the payment of salary and wages including associated fringe benefits of such limited FTP shall be reduced in the Department's annual budget submission. Period,” said Keith Bybee, Division Manager of Budget Policy Analysis, during his introduction of the measure.

Bybee told the committee the provision formalizes a process the Legislature and budget staff already follow when reconciling agencies’ personnel costs to available FTPs. He said staff sometimes identify agency resources that could be used instead of adding new line items and that the bill would put that work into statute.

Section 2 would expand reporting on employee travel by requiring more detailed submissions about professional‑development travel and other expenses. Bybee said the change is intended to make agency travel spending “more transparent and not wasteful,” and noted the Legislature’s recent practice of requiring post‑travel reports to the director of legislative services. “That is an invaluable meeting for me to go to,” Bybee said of an example conference where state fiscal officers compare budgeting practices.

Representatives raised questions about operational flexibility for agencies. Representative Furness asked how the change would affect agencies such as the Department of Labor that sometimes need to staff up quickly during economic downturns. Bybee responded that the statute would only formalize the budget‑submission process and that the legislature, through the appropriation process and the Joint Finance‑Appropriations Committee, could fund agencies at a different level or add back positions when it adopts the appropriation bill. He said the change is prospective, describing it in terms of the next budget submission cycle (for fiscal year 2027) while the enacted budget would remain in effect for the current fiscal year.

Representative Tanner moved that the committee send House Bill 413 to the floor with a due‑pass recommendation. Representative Manwaring seconded the motion. The committee approved the motion by voice vote; no roll‑call tally was recorded in the hearing transcript. The bill now heads to the full House for further action.