House Appropriations chair briefs Senate on FY25 budget adjustment, flags Medicaid, housing and treasurer fund reallocations

Representative Chai, chair of the House Appropriations Committee, briefed the Senate Appropriations Committee on Feb. 11 about the House version of the fiscal year 2025 budget adjustment act, saying the House agreed with “virtually 99% of what the governor recommended” while making a set of targeted changes and clarifications.

The House packet, Chai told the Senate, trims or transfers a small share of general fund spending — she said the adjustments affected about 0.7% of general fund dollars and 0.17% of the total all-funds budget — and mainly addressed housekeeping, account truing and program-specific fixes. “In general, we agreed with virtually 99% of what the governor recommended in his budget adjustment proposal,” she said.

Why it matters: The changes shift one-time and special-fund dollars to address urgent caseload and provider needs in human services and to free up money for housing projects and other near-term priorities. Several of the adjustments also add or clarify allowable uses, close unused special funds and add guardrails for short-term grants.

Key Medicaid and human services items Representative Chai identified several larger human services adjustments. The House added $21 million for extraordinary fiscal relief for nursing homes and roughly $24.5 million to cover underestimated Medicaid “bed day” costs; Chai said the administration had undercounted roughly 78,000 Medicaid bed days, which drove part of the increase. She also said caseload counts were roughly flat or down while utilization — the per-case use of services — had risen, contributing to higher costs.

To manage utilization-driven pressure, the House included language enabling use of the Human Services Caseload Reserve Fund — which Chai said holds about $94.5 million — for eligible draws tied to utilization, and it used higher-than-expected consensus revenue to cover about $13 million of needs rather than relying on ongoing general fund.

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