JFAC approves program-maintenance budgets, technical corrections and agency carryovers

The Joint Finance and Appropriations Committee on Friday, Jan. 17, approved a slate of program-maintenance budgets, technical corrections and reappropriations affecting multiple state agencies, including corrections to broadband funding, transfers for environmental cleanup and routine appropriations for legislative, judicial, education, public safety and natural-resources programs.

Committee action matters because the motions set the baseline funding levels that drive agency operations for the 2026 fiscal year and authorize limited carryover or reappropriation of one-time funds for projects such as broadband grants, court and legislative technology updates, and environmental remediation.

The committee passed more than a dozen separate motions. Many were unanimous votes recorded as 20 ayes and 0 nays. Motions included reassigning reappropriated broadband funds into a newly created broadband office, correcting a Department of Environmental Quality appropriation to reflect a transfer rather than a reduction to the general fund, and multiple object-class corrections in the Department of Health and Welfare to move monies from trustee and benefit payments into operating expenditures for contract-based payments.

The panel also approved…