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JFO gives House Appropriations Committee a primer on budget language
Summary
Emily Byrne of the Joint Fiscal Office briefed the House Appropriations Committee on core budget terms—appropriation/spending authority, obligation, expense, carry forward and reversion—and explained delegated authorities such as excess receipts under Title 32.
Emily Byrne, fiscal analyst at the Joint Fiscal Office, told the House Appropriations Committee on Jan. 22 that some of the budget terminology routinely used in hearings has precise meanings that affect how agencies may access and use public money.
"Spending authority is sort of effectively the legislature executing its power of the purse," Byrne said, adding that an appropriation is the formal name for that spending authority and that the terms are often used interchangeably by practitioners.
Byrne told committee members that an appropriation or spending authority authorizes a specific branch or agency to spend money from a defined fund for a defined purpose, but does not itself create an obligation or an expense. She distinguished the three steps: appropriation (authority), obligation (a contract or commitment), and expense (payment). "The appropriation just says in the next 12 months, you are authorized to do what you need to do to execute your mission," Byrne said.
The briefing covered how funds left unobligated at fiscal year end are treated differently depending on the fund source. Byrne said special funds, federal funds and internal service funds typically require explicit carry‑forward language to preserve spending authority into the next fiscal year, while some funds—such as the general fund, transportation fund and education fund—have routinely allowed certain carry forwards subject to approval. She noted there is proposed language in the governor's recommended budget adjustment that would authorize the secretary of administration to carry forward certain executive-branch spending authority into the next fiscal year.
Byrne also described reversion: when a department's unobligated spending authority is determined not to be needed, that authority is reverted and the backing money is returned to the general pot in a subsequent Budget Adjustment Act. She flagged the related delegated authorities: the Joint Fiscal Committee can authorize spending from federal grants when the General Assembly is not in session, and Title 32 grants the commissioner of finance and management an excess receipts process to provide additional spending authority for special funds when justified.
Committee members used multi‑part examples Byrne offered — including the session's recurring coffee metaphor — to check that carry forward, reversion and excess receipts function as described. Questions focused on which funds can carry forward without additional legislative action, how agencies obtain delegated authority for federal grants, and how unobligated authority appears in subsequent budgets.
Byrne and members agreed these distinctions matter because appropriations are made many months before execution; an accurate shared vocabulary helps the legislature and executive coordinate when obligations, expending invoices and project timelines do not align with fiscal‑year boundaries.
The committee then moved on to an Agency of Commerce and Community Development briefing and other agenda items later in the morning.
