House and Senate differ on wildfire grants, energy matching funds and local backfill; conference committee appointed

The House and Senate left the floor with several unresolved differences over the supplemental budget package that will be resolved by a joint conference committee.

Overview of the disagreement: Committee and floor action produced major differences in three areas:

1) Wildfire mitigation and post-fire rehabilitation funds — the House allocated a combined approach that included loans and grants (the House’s position included $40 million in grants and $60 million in loans under the program discussed on the floor). The Senate amended its approach on third reading to provide $100 million in grants (deleting the loan component). The two chambers therefore differ by approximately $60 million in the mix of grants vs. loans.

2) Energy matching funds — the House’s version retained large energy matching funds in the budget reserve as part of the governor’s package; the Senate returned those funds to the governor’s discretion by restoring roughly $100 million to the governor (Senate replaced a prior reversion with a requirement that up to $100 million revert to the budget reserve). The chambers’ positions therefore diverge on how much of those energy‑matching funds remain available for legislative appropriation versus executive discretion.

3) Local-government property tax backfill — the House approved a $72 million backfill amendment to assist special districts and certain counties affected by recent property tax relief actions; the Senate provided a $15 million backfill targeted to specific categories (health, hospitals, emergency services). The contour and scale of the backfill are therefore wide open for negotiation; the House’s $72 million was broader in scope than the Senate’s $15 million.

Other differences and procedural notes: The Senate’s third-reading amendments increased the size of the budget balancer drawn from the Legislative Stabilization Reserve Account (LSRA) to about $215 million in the Senate version versus a $70 million drawdown reflected in the House/JAC position. The House retained several JAC (joint appropriations committee) adjustments, restored several positions and included specific line-item differences in school funding, water projects, and other agency positions.

Action taken: The Speaker referred Senate File 1 to a joint conference committee of five members from each chamber to meet and resolve differences: conference committee from the House includes Speaker Nyman, Representative Lean, Representative Knapp, Representative Heiner and Appropriations Chairman Bair (the House statement named these representatives to the committee). The committee will negotiate the final supplemental package and reconcile appropriations language and footnotes before returning a single bill for both chambers’ consideration.

Why it matters: The conference will decide how emergency wildfire and energy funds are distributed (grants vs. loans), the degree and scope of local-government tax backfill following property tax relief measures, and how much of the state’s reserve accounts are used in the near term — all items with multi-million-dollar and statewide implications.

What to watch next: The joint conference committee meetings, any compromise on the wildfire grants/loans split, the final size of the local backfill, and the final budget balancer (how much is drawn from LSRA) will determine the state's fiscal posture and the implementation of relief measures for local governments and fire-affected communities.