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Committee reviews first draft of two‑year capital bill, flags bond/cash tracking and reallocations
Summary
Legislative counsel walked the Corrections & Institutions Committee through a first draft of the two‑year capital bill, focusing on the bill's structure, the bond total and how cash appropriations and reallocations will be tracked and presented.
Legislative Counsel John Gray told the Corrections & Institutions Committee on March 18 that the committee was reviewing a first draft of its two‑year capital bill and that the draft reflected prior markup and recommendations.
Gray said the draft presents a list of authorized projects grouped by the agency that will receive the appropriation and a separate funding section that shows bonded authorizations and cash appropriations. “This first section here is just establishing intent saying that this is a 2 year act,” Gray said as he began the walk‑through.
Why it matters: committee members said they need clear, consistent presentation so future readers and staff can reconcile the bill text with the spreadsheet that tracks the committee's choices. Several members flagged that cash appropriations are now more common and can obscure the bond totals unless the bill and spreadsheet are kept aligned.
The draft shows a single aggregated bonded authorization box and then breaks projects into FY 2026 and FY 2027 appropriations. Gray asked the panel to treat highlighted figures as unresolved; yellow in the draft signaled committee changes, blue signaled questions from counsel. He said the aggregate bonded amount in the opening lines will be confirmed after all project figures are settled.
Committee members asked for two technical clarifications that recurred during the discussion: (1) whether cash items that fund projects normally shown in the bonded section should be shown as reductions to the bond totals, and (2) how reallocations from prior acts or cash subaccounts should be displayed so readers can trace sources and uses. Gray noted both are legal and drafting choices: cash can be used to reduce the bonded totals if the bill explicitly shows the split, or projects can be split into a bonded portion and a cash portion; either approach increases drafting complexity.
Members also discussed the draft's reallocations section, which collects prior appropriations being repurposed. Gray said the reallocation language can either keep items grouped by the agency originally appropriated (a format used in earlier bills) or present one consolidated list showing each original appropriation and the new target. Committee members asked Gray to clean the presentation so it's easier to report on the floor and to make the few exceptions (where reallocations are tied directly to a specific section) clearly visible.
Committee direction and next steps: Members asked staff to align the bill text and the tracking spreadsheet, to confirm which prior acts and subaccounts supply the reallocations, and to prepare a version that explicitly shows cash vs. bonded splits for projects that will use both sources. Gray said he will refine the draft and that committee members should focus comments both on language and on figures as he walks through sections in subsequent sessions.
Ending: The committee did not take a formal vote on the draft during this session; members set follow‑up work for staff to reconcile the spreadsheet and to provide clarified statutory references for reallocation lines.
