Members of the Appropriations - Education and Environment Division met for an orientation where staff demonstrated the committee's electronic attendance and voting workflow and how to access agency budget reports in the state's budget development and tracking system.

The chair, Chairman Sorbog, told members to notify the chair before bringing amendments so the committee can manage debate and avoid last-minute surprises. "If you're bringing an amendment, please tell the chair before just don't show up at the thing and release it," the chairman said during the orientation, stressing orderly workflow and that controversial items would receive individual votes while less contentious adjustments might be handled by consensus.

Becky, an Office of Management and Budget (OMB) staff member who led the technical demonstration, walked members through two systems. For attendance and voting she showed the "Laws" interface and explained that members must be logged into Laws on an iPad or laptop and click the committee voting button when a vote is called. "On a normal vote, it's literally the exact same thing except you're gonna see yay or nay," Becky said, adding that the public can see the vote display when the committee permits it. She demonstrated that the attendance vote initially appears as a single green "yay" button and that the public view will show members' yes and no responses when used for regular voting.

Becky then demonstrated the budget reports available through the state's budget site. She directed members to the Financial Transparency page, then Budget, and the link to the budget development and tracking system (BFM reporting/PeopleSoft). She showed specific reports—grants (report 460), the 410 decision-package report and summary/detail/description/financial-class tabs—and how to run a report for an agency, search by agency code, and export results as PDF or Excel. "If you wanted to run this report grant multiple agencies, you can just click on however many you want," Becky said while demonstrating the interface. She noted agencies must prioritize requests in the system and that narrative fields explain the agency justification for each request.

Adam, legislative counsel, confirmed counsel's ability to run the same reports for preparing committee documents but noted role differences between counsel and OMB analysts. "We have access to the system. Our role is different than the analysts at OMB. We don't have access to all the things, but we certainly can run the reports in the system," Adam said, adding counsel will use the reports to prepare green sheets and other committee materials.

The committee was told the current materials reflect the prior governor's submission (Governor Burgum) and that a separate packet and the new governor's (Governor Armstrong) budget would be released after the administration files its submission. OMB staff said the Armstrong budget materials would appear in the same reporting system after the new submission is posted.

Members raised that the systems can be overwhelming on first use; Becky and other OMB staff offered one-on-one help and repeated that an OMB analyst will be in the committee room to assist during hearings. The chair emphasized the committee's intent that all five senators participate in budget review and that OMB and counsel will support members as they dig deeper into complex items.

The orientation closed with logistical notes about committee binders and workspace and a reminder that the committee will move into substantive budget hearings the following week.