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JFAC staff demonstrate SharePoint, session record and new LSO support for members
Summary
Legislative staff demonstrated the Joint Finance and Appropriation Committee’s (JFAC) SharePoint and session-record tools and introduced new Legislative Services Office (LSO) and impact-review staff who will support members through the budget process.
Madam Chair Horman opened the Joint Finance and Appropriation Committee meeting Tuesday by asking Keith Bybee, Division Manager of the Budget and Policy Analysis Team, to show members how to use the committee’s SharePoint repository and the public session record.
The demonstration walked members through downloading the legislative budget book and agency presentations, organizing files on personal drives, and using the session record to replay past hearings. "Think of SharePoint as that same mechanism, the kind of repository for you to check each morning before you come in the committee or the night before so that you can download the materials and be prepared for the committee meeting," Bybee said.
Why it matters: JFAC handles dozens of agency budgets and thousands of pages of documents during session. Bybee and his team said the SharePoint naming convention and the session-record index are intended to reduce duplicate downloads, make analyst and agency materials easy to find, and make the committee’s work more transparent to the public.
Bybee demonstrated how to select and download agency folders, advised members to save files locally to enable markup, and explained a new naming convention for analyst (A) and agency (B) presentations so related files appear together. He also flagged a new front-end sales-tax report added to the budget book and encouraged members who prefer paper to request printed copies.
LSO staffing and impact-review resources: After the demonstration, Bybee introduced the budget and policy team who will support JFAC, including deputy manager Jared Tetreault, data systems coordinator Shane Winslow, principal analyst Janet Jessup and new analysts assigned to education, public safety and other portfolios. Paul Headley, deputy chief with LSO, introduced the impact-review team — a new resource intended to produce short research memos, one- to two-page evidence summaries and deeper analyses on request. Headley said the team will help answer questions such as "What’s the evidence for the program that’s being proposed? Has it worked in other jurisdictions?"
Members asked for follow-up, including individual training slots to set up SharePoint and guidance on how to use the session record. Bybee told members staff would follow up to help them configure downloads and optional tablet devices for annotation.
The committee also reviewed the JFAC hearing schedule and how work groups will coordinate with morning committee hearings. Bybee said the schedule sequences agency presentations so members can hear an agency in one week and set its budget the following week, a change intended to reduce the number of budget bills that reach the floor at the end of session.
What comes next: Staff offered to provide individual help to members who need assistance with SharePoint or the session record. The committee recessed for a short break and returned for the Division of Financial Management presentation.
