Committee briefed on deficiency warrants and supplemental requests; emergency clause guides timing

Kellen McGurkin, budget and policy analyst with the Legislative Services Office, briefed the Joint Finance and Appropriations Committee on Jan. 7 about deficiency warrants, supplementals and rescissions, explaining statutory authority, common uses, and how the committee handles timing under the Idaho Constitution’s emergency clause.

McGurkin said deficiency warrants are a statutory exception that allows specific agencies to spend against the general fund for limited, authorized purposes without a prior appropriation. Those expenditures are later presented to the committee so the general fund can appropriate the money to the account where the charges occurred and the agency’s outstanding balance is zeroed out. Boards such as the Board of Examiners or the Board of Land Commissioners typically authorize the initial expenditures for qualified purposes; McGurkin named common uses historically authorized by statute: dam safety, fire suppression and pest control.

McGurkin showed a five‑year trend indicating the total value of deficiency warrant requests has increased and that much of the growth has come from pest-control requests. He said the committee will see individual deficiency-warrant and supplemental requests in agency hearings; the presentation contained a table of requests by agency and the governor’s recommendations.

On supplemental appropriations (adjustments to the current fiscal year’s appropriation), McGurkin said these function like normal appropriations except they apply to the current fiscal year rather than the next budget. He noted the governor’s proposed supplemental total in materials the committee received: $604,842,000 across funds, including $98,776,000 from the general fund. McGurkin and members also noted that those totals include a proposed transfer of $60,000,000 from the general fund to the fire deficiency fund.

McGurkin reminded members that the Idaho Constitution’s emergency clause governs whether supplemental or deficiency‑warrant measures take immediate effect before the end of the fiscal year; an emergency is declared in the preamble of the law when immediate effect is intended. Committee co-chairs stressed the need to reserve supplementals for true emergencies and not to use the process as a routine means of shifting planned spending into the current year.

Committee members asked operational questions such as whether a leaking roof in a state building could be treated as an emergency; McGurkin said the agency would submit the request and the committee would decide whether the circumstances met the emergency standard. Co-chairs reiterated that bona fide emergencies exist and that the committee may approve emergency language when warranted, but that past cycles occasionally treated non‑urgent items as supplementals and the committee aims to limit that practice.

McGurkin said agencies that rely on deficiency warrants and supplementals will present details to the committee in their respective budget hearings, and the committee will consider those requests in work‑group review and full committee action.