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House committee adopts fiscal-impact procedures for school and state insurance bills
Summary
The House Insurance & Commerce Committee approved procedures requiring fiscal impact statements for bills that would create new or increased costs to the state and public school life and health insurance program; the Legislative Council contracted the Siegel Group to prepare the statements.
Jill Thayer, Bureau of Legislative Research, told the House Insurance & Commerce Committee that committee members had copies of newly adopted procedures for fiscal impact statements and that the Legislative Council contracted the Siegel Group to produce those statements.
Thayer said the procedures require a fiscal impact statement before any committee may take up a bill that would impose a new or increased cost on the state and public school life and health insurance program administered by the Employee Benefits Division (EBD). She said Siegel has been tracking bills since pre-filing began and that about 27 bills had been flagged so far.
The nut graf: The committee voted to adopt the procedures that set a process and vendor (Siegel Group) for producing fiscal impact statements required under the joint rules when a bill could affect the state or public school insurance program. The rule change means committees will have a formal mechanism to request a fiscal-impact analysis before considering covered bills.
Under the new process, Siegel will gather data from EBD and produce statements on identified bills; those statements will be provided to sponsors and committee chairs. Thayer said Siegel will produce the first statements in the next week or two. She also said the committee or the committee chair can request a fiscal impact statement for a bill that appears before the committee, and the committee analyst will notify her so Siegel can begin work.
Representative Baker asked whether shell bills that later receive language would be tracked; Thayer said three shell bills had been identified and would be monitored for amendments that might trigger a fiscal impact determination. Thayer noted that sponsors of flagged bills had been notified and that flagged bills were indicated on committee agendas.
The meeting record shows a motion was made to approve the fiscal impact procedures and the committee adopted it by voice vote.
The committee discussion clarified procedural steps for how and when Siegel would produce statements and how committees would request them; it did not change statutory authority or create new law itself.
The committee moved on after the vote to other agenda items.
