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JFAC staff demonstrate SharePoint document system, hearing schedule and new LSO policy/impact team
Summary
Legislative staff demonstrated SharePoint access, the session record and the JFAC hearing schedule to committee members and introduced new analysts and an LSO impact review team intended to support evidence‑based budget review and work groups.
Keith Bybee of the Legislative Services Office instructed committee members on how to access and download the legislative budget book and hearing materials from a JFAC SharePoint site and the legislature’s session record during the Jan. 8 Joint Finance and Appropriations Committee meeting.
Bybee demonstrated the committee’s new naming convention for agency files, recommended that members download materials to their own drives to enable annotation, and showed how to locate slide decks, video and archived interim meeting materials in the session record. He said analysts’ agency slide decks will use a consistent two‑letter suffix (e.g., A for analyst, B for agency) and a five‑digit agency code to make files easier to find.
Bybee reviewed the JFAC hearing cadence: the committee generally will meet roughly 8 to 9:30 a.m. for full committee work, then split into work groups beginning at about 9:30 a.m. to dive into specific agency budgets. He outlined a 10‑week plan that begins with orientation, moves into maintenance and replacement‑item reviews, then agency hearings and budget setting; staff projected JFAC business could conclude in early to mid‑March.
Paul Headley, deputy director of the Legislative Services Office, introduced a new LSO impact review team — five analysts and two research fellows — who will provide short research memos, evidence reviews and GIS or IT analysis at the committee’s request. Headley emphasized the team’s role in helping the committee assess program evidence and outcomes.
Bybee also introduced the budget and policy analysis staff members who will work with members in work groups and agency hearings, and described iPad/Surface Pro options for members who prefer to annotate PDFs electronically. Committee members requested additional one‑on‑one help with SharePoint setup and asked staff to provide historical documentation on prior GEAR fund distributions and the fire‑account balance so members can prepare for upcoming hearings.
The session record and SharePoint are publicly accessible through legislature.idaho.gov under Legislative Services - Budget & Policy (session record by agency), and staff said printed budget books remain available on request.
