Committee presses JFO on $6.2 million FHWA flood reimbursement and where it appears in the budget adjustment

House Transportation Committee members asked why roughly $6.2 million in Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) reimbursement for personnel costs tied to recent flooding did not appear in the committee's budget adjustment materials and where the governor had proposed the funds be spent.

Logan Moberi of the Joint Fiscal Office told the committee the FHWA reimbursement is a payment that will reimburse the Agency of Transportation for personnel and administrative costs already paid with state dollars. Moberi said the agency initially expected about $8.5 million when the budget was presented last year but, after further work with the federal agency, now expects about $6.2 million.

The explanation matters because the committee is preparing a BAA (budget adjustment) letter with a deadline to return language to Appropriations. Committee members said they usually see flagged items in the budget adjustment materials and wanted to confirm whether the federal reimbursement needed separate approval or merely showed up as accounting within the transportation appropriation.

Moberi said the FHWA amount is reflected in the agency's operating statement and in the current-law revenue calculus, not necessarily as a separate line in the budget-adjustment language. He described the change as the result of updated federal calculations and said the reduction from the original $8.5 million estimate was absorbed in the agency's internal accounting: excess FY24 revenues were shifted forward to offset the smaller-than-expected federal reimbursement.

Committee members pressed for details about how the agency balances those changes. Moberi and other staff explained that agencies routinely use reversion and carryforward procedures to balance year-end accounts: reverted funds typically return to the transportation fund and agencies use approved carryforwards or reversion lists to align expenditures with the appropriated totals. The agency's materials that day showed an estimated reversion of about $1.1 million and an updated total-revenue figure cited in the presentation.

Representative Plumb asked whether there are limits on reversions and carryforwards; staff replied that agencies submit lists of proposed reversions and carryforwards and that some project cancellations or scope changes can require committee approval. Staff offered to provide the committee the detailed list showing which projects generated the estimated $1.1 million reversion if members wanted to review it.

The committee did not take a formal vote on the FHWA reimbursement; members asked staff to circulate the operating statement and for the Agency of Transportation to be prepared to present the reversion/carryforward detail at a future meeting or in the BAA materials.

Next steps: staff said they would share the operating statement and the agency could bring the reversion list for committee review before the BAA deadline.