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JFAC rolls out SharePoint, hearing schedule and staff resources for 2025 budget session
Summary
At the Jan. 8 Joint Finance and Appropriation Committee orientation, Keith Bybee of Legislative Services demonstrated the committee SharePoint, explained the session-record archive and outlined the JFAC hearing and work-group schedule. Paul Headley introduced a new impact review team to support analysts.
Keith Bybee, division manager of the Budget and Policy Analysis Team at the Legislative Services Office, gave members of the Joint Finance and Appropriation Committee a step-by-step demonstration of the SharePoint repository used to distribute the legislative budget book and agency presentations.
Bybee told the committee the repository mirrors OneDrive and is intended to let members download, annotate and save agency presentations and the legislative budget book locally. "Think of SharePoint as that same mechanism," he said, adding that files should be downloaded to avoid opening PDFs in read-only mode and that staff will provide one-on-one help for members who need it.
Why it matters: the committee will use the system during daily hearings to retrieve agency presentations and materials. Bybee also walked through the public-facing "session record by agency" on legislature.idaho.gov, which includes video, audio and documents for each hearing.
Practical details and schedule highlights
- Files: Bybee advised members to select files in SharePoint then download and save them to a local JFAC folder (he said the legislative budget book is roughly 850 pages). - Naming convention: staff created a naming system so agency and analyst presentations are grouped by a five-digit code and letter suffixes (example: analyst presentation One-049A and agency presentation One-049B). - Session record access: legislature.idaho.gov -> Legislative Services -> Budget and Policy -> "session record by agency." - Hearing cadence: committee is scheduled to meet roughly 8:00–9:30 a.m. each day, with work groups convening at about 9:30 a.m. to handle line-item and program work; the committee expects to finish JFAC business by approximately week 10, around March 12. - Program maintenance and replacement items: Bybee said program maintenance budgets will be set on Friday, Jan. 17; replacement items (IT and other capital replacements treated as growth) will be reviewed in a block hearing on Jan. 15.
Staff and new resources
Bybee introduced his budget and policy team — including deputy manager Jared Tetreault, data systems coordinator Shane Winslow, principal analyst Janet Jessup and other analysts assigned to education, health and transportation portfolios — and asked members to connect with their assigned analysts in advance of work-group meetings.
Paul Headley, deputy chief with the Legislative Services Office, introduced a newly organized impact review team that will support analysts with evidence reviews and research. Headley said the impact team can deliver short research memos, one- to two-page briefs or deeper analysis and can help identify evidence from other jurisdictions; he urged members to use the team to help evaluate program effectiveness.
What’s next
Committee leaders told members to ensure SharePoint access and to contact staff for iPads or Surface devices configured for annotation. Bybee paused to offer individual follow-up help while agencies prepare their presentations for the coming weeks.
Ending
The SharePoint orientation and schedule overview concluded with committee members asking for supplemental materials (for example, a report on prior GEAR fund uses) and staff offering to distribute links and one-on-one assistance.
