Legislative Budget Office outlines fiscal-note process, who may request notes

The Legislative Budget Office explained to the House Workforce, Labor and Economic Development Finance and Policy Committee how fiscal notes are produced, who can request them and why timing and precise bill language matter for producing timely estimates.

For the record, Christian Larsen, director of the Legislative Budget Office, told the committee the office is “a nonpartisan legislative office serving both the House and Senate” and that its work centers on three statutory responsibilities: coordinating the fiscal-note process, running local impact notes, and supporting the Tax Expenditure Review Commission.

Larsen said a fiscal note provides an “objective estimate of the fiscal impact imposed [by] legislation to the state budget.” He described the front page of a fiscal note as a five-year table of dollar impacts and full-time-equivalent (FTE) changes, followed by…