Joint Fiscal Office: committee housing bill would carry roughly $73.4 million in appropriations; $250,000 initial tax-credit cost noted

The House Committee on General & Housing heard a summary from the Joint Fiscal Office on the draft fiscal note for the committee's housing and housing development bill on March 12. James Scuffey, a fiscal analyst with the Joint Fiscal Office, told members the bill's top-line cost is about $73,406,500, almost entirely made up of program appropriations and staff positions included in the draft bill.

The fiscal note also lists a $250,000 fiscal-year-2026 appropriation connected to an extension of one of the bill's affordable-housing tax-credit programs, which Scuffey said represents the first-year fiscal cost for a newly authorized first-generation homebuyer assistance allocation. Scuffey said the down-payment assistance program referenced in the bill already has authorization to issue credits through fiscal 2026 under prior legislation; the bill extends that program from fiscal…