Joint Fiscal Office walks committee through technical corrections and recommends acceptances and rejections across multiple budget sections

The Joint Fiscal Office (JFO) provided a detailed technical review of the budget adjustment (H.493) on Oct. 11, 2025, recommending acceptance of some language fixes and rejection of others. JFO staff guided the conference negotiators through corrections to one-time and base appropriations, recommended where prior-year language should remain, and flagged sections that should be handled by legislative counsel rather than negotiated at the conference table.

Key JFO recommendations and technical corrections included: moving an $80,000 item to one-time where appropriate; correcting the funding source for an item (grants versus personal services); placing urban search and rescue (USAR) funding in the proper base and assigning it to emergency management/public safety; accepting a Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity Community Resource Center reclassification from the Department for Children and Families to the Department of Mental Health (as draft language indicated); and recommending acceptance of several technical grammatical and fund-name clarifications.

JFO advised against accepting a set of proposed changes that would split existing fiscal closeout language into multiple sections, instead urging the committee to keep the construct consistent with last year’s language. The office also recommended not including new “pool-created positions” language in isolation and suggested handling position language as a single drafting exercise when the full position section is prepared.

On tax and allocation language, JFO recommended retaining longstanding property transfer tax (PTT) allocation language in the D100 section rather than striking it at this late stage, and recommended rejecting newly proposed special-fund constructs for electric vehicle supply equipment until committees with jurisdiction complete related work.

JFO also noted multiple cross-references and statutory-name issues, including that the Division of Emergency Management is the statutory reference used in prior enactments and that proposed changes to that name should be rejected to maintain consistency. The office recommended not accepting a repeal in timing-sensitive language that could create implementation problems given the bill’s passage timetable.

Process notes and next steps: JFO said it would provide technical edits and further review where legislative counsel and committee chairs identify outstanding issues. Committee members agreed to defer complex topics that require outreach to other parties, such as arbitration language tied to the Attorney General’s office and multi-party agreements, which negotiators said they lacked time to address at the final stage.

Ending: committee members thanked JFO for the review, agreed to several of the recommended corrections, and asked staff to incorporate JFO suggestions into the technical letter and revised BAA for the next draft.