Committee members reviewed a fourth version of the Corrections & Institutions capital budget spreadsheet and discussed reallocations that fund a $1.5 million cash allocation for renovation work on the American unit.

Scott Moore, fiscal officer, walked the committee through the changes and said, “This does say version 4 at the top,” while explaining updates to columns that now include placeholder house-bill section numbers. Moore told the committee, “We put $1,500,000 in cash” for design and construction of the American unit renovation and said that cash is shown in column H of the spreadsheet.

Why it matters: the spreadsheet ties project-level changes to two-year bonding capacity and cash balances that will be part of the bill presented to the full body. Moore said the version shows bonding and cash across FY26 and FY27, and that reallocations and bond premiums affect the total two-year capital plan reported out to the board.

Key numbers and mechanics discussed: Moore said the FY26 bonding figure shown is $61.6 million and noted an FY26 cash total of $9.6 million; together with an identified $1.7 million reallocation the draft shows roughly $11.3 million in cash-funded projects for the period. He explained the spreadsheet’s mechanics for balancing cash and bonded totals and described an apparent $350,000 underrun in FY26 offset by a corresponding FY27 overspend because the bill spans two fiscal years. Moore said the earlier version had a $14 million line reduced by $6 million to about $8.5 million, freeing roughly $6 million for appropriations and earmarking $2 million for a subaccount (version notes in the spreadsheet describe that change).

Moore also said staff will revise wording and section numbers after receiving final bill language from John, who handles legislative council language, and that the printed spreadsheet distributed on the floor will be a corrected version. Committee members raised the need for careful checks of reallocations and section numbering; one member requested another meeting at 8:30 a.m. the next day to continue review.

No formal votes or final actions on the bill were recorded in the transcript. Moore said the spreadsheet is the working document the committee will use and that language and section-number corrections will be made before the bill is printed and distributed with members’ bill packets.

The discussion included procedural and formatting items — for example, a display element labeled “Bennington” was noted as visually truncated on the printed spreadsheet — and staff confirmed they will correct that cell and reissue the packet. Moore said he will triple-check totals and section numbers once he receives John’s final draft language and circulate an updated version to the committee.

Looking ahead: staff and committee members plan to reconvene the following morning to continue draft review; Moore indicated further drafts are likely and said corrections will be incorporated before the bill is presented on the floor.