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JFAC staff present program-maintenance packets and 'clear language' to bind agency spending
Summary
Legislative budget staff briefed JFAC on program-maintenance packets, a new committee column for recommendations and 'clear language' intended to make previously informal 'intent' directives enforceable in appropriation acts; staff said reappropriation (ARPA) and transfer exemptions appear across multiple agency bills.
Legislative Services Office budget staff walked the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee through its program maintenance packets on Jan. 15, describing a new structure for committee review and a push to convert longstanding “intent” language into enforceable appropriation conditions.
Keith Bybee, division manager for budget policy analysis, showed committee members the packet format: a comparative page with a new third column for the committee’s recommendation (in addition to agency request and governor’s recommendation), background on maintenance adjustments, and a companion “clear language” package intended to specify conditions, limitations and restrictions tied to appropriations.
Bybee described four broad types of language found in the maintenance bills: exemptions from statutory limits on transfers between expenditure categories (the statute cited governs transfers between personnel and operating categories), reappropriation authority (commonly used for multi-year capital projects and ARPA-funded programs), specific conditions/limitations/restrictions (the “clear language” staff is embedding into bills to make appropriation purposes explicit), and accountability/audit provisions.
Committee members emphasized the intent to make the language binding. Chair Horman said the committee had debated “intent language” in the interim and that the new phrasing is meant to be more definitive: “When we give you money for x, that's where we expect it to be spent. Not because that's our intent, but it's also the law,” she said on the record during presentation.
Bybee explained the process for budget-setting votes: the committee will start with the 2026 base, then add personnel benefit costs, statewide cost allocation, and change-in-employee-compensation (CEC) adjustments; the right-hand committee column will reflect those cumulative choices. He said some items—particularly large ITD capital projects and reappropriations—will be discussed in more depth in subsequent hearings and that staff will supply detailed language packets for member review.
Bybee asked members to review the packets in advance and flagged examples included in the presentation: DEQ allocations for the Coeur d’Alene Basin remediation fund and transfers into environmental remediation and agricultural best-practices funds, continuous appropriation for the Endowment Fund Investment Board, and reappropriation authority for broadband and IT projects held under federal grants. He also noted the fiscal-impact team is available to help track performance and reporting where the committee wants follow-up metrics.
No appropriation votes were taken during the briefing; Bybee and staff made themselves available for follow-up questions and to provide the committee with detailed language and reports as members prepare Friday’s maintenance budget votes.
