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Senate Transportation committee backs committee amendment to reallocate pilot funds, add rail funding reference
Summary
The Senate Transportation committee took a unanimous straw-poll to approve a committee amendment that would reallocate $600,000 from a pilot fund to four positions, add language on non-emergency transports tied to EVA, and insert a $31,000,000 federal rail funding reference into draft 2.1.
The Senate Transportation committee took a unanimous straw-poll to approve a committee amendment that would reallocate $600,000 from a pilot fund to create or fund four positions, add language on non-emergency transports tied to EVA, and insert a reference to $31,000,000 in federal rail funds into the bill draft, committee members said.
The amendment package described by the committee would shift money out of the pilot fund and add $600,000 toward four positions. Committee members also said the package includes revised language addressing non-emergency transports and the language negotiated with EVA. One committee member identified draft 2.1 as the correct version and noted the amendment appears in five places in the text: “Draft 2.1 is going to be the correct draft. And there's 5 instances. There are, instances of amendment,” the member said.
Committee members conducted a show-of-hands straw poll on the three changes and indicated unanimous support; the committee chair said the amendment would be offered on the floor on Tuesday. The chair added that committee members would receive an email if leadership decides the committee needs to meet again before the floor session.
No roll-call counts or individual votes were recorded in the transcript. The committee’s conversation as recorded did not specify the exact duties or titles of the four positions, the baseline balance in the pilot fund before the transfer, or the effective date of any funding changes. The transcript likewise did not specify the bill number the amendment will be attached to or the exact text of the non-emergency-transport language beyond referencing EVA.
The committee framed the changes as a single committee amendment to be presented on the floor; members did not debate alternate funding sources or proposed offsets on the record during the portion of the transcript provided.
The committee’s next steps are to present the committee amendment on the Senate floor on Tuesday and, if needed, to convene another committee meeting before that floor presentation.
