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Deficiency warrants, supplementals and the emergency clause: JFAC refresher ahead of budget season
Summary
Kellen McGurkin of LSO explained that deficiency warrants let some agencies temporarily spend against the general fund for statutorily authorized purposes and that supplemental requests and emergency clauses determine whether adjustments take effect in the current fiscal year.
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 — current‑year tools members will encounter during the session.
McGurkin described deficiency warrants as a statutory exception that allows select agencies to spend against the general fund for specified purposes without a prior appropriation; the committee must later appropriate funds to zero out those expenditures. He compared the mechanism to a credit card: agencies use authority set in statute and later present the committee with an appropriation to cover the spending.
“Most authorized expenses are things like dam safety, fire suppression, or pest control,” McGurkin said, noting that those are examples the Legislature has previously authorized for deficiency‑warrant spending. The initial authorizations for many of those expenditures typically come from the Board of Examiners or the Board of Land Commissioners, bodies that approve releases of funds for emergent needs.
McGurkin showed that the statewide total for supplemental requests in the governor’s recommended package was $604,842,000, including $98,776,000 on the general fund. He flagged that this total included a proposed transfer of $60,000,000 from the general fund to the fire deficiency fund. He also said the legislative budget book contains a consolidated list of deficiency‑warrant and supplemental requests by agency (page 14 in the budget book packet).
The analyst reminded members of the Idaho Constitution’s emergency‑clause principle: most laws do not take effect until the end of the fiscal year unless an emergency is declared in the bill’s preamble. McGurkin said the committee must decide whether interim (current‑year) adjustments genuinely meet the emergency standard or can wait until the following fiscal year.
Committee members discussed thresholds for true emergency supplementals. A co‑chair reminded members that in recent years the committee has pushed to restrict supplemental requests to bona fide emergencies rather than predictable or planned requests that agencies declined to include in their base submissions. Senator Cook asked about rapid repairs, such as a leaking roof, and staff advised that procurement and purchasing rules still apply and that agencies and the division of purchasing must manage procurement steps even when a bill contains emergency language. McGurkin said that emergency governor or board authorization is part of the process and that the committee will weigh requests on a case‑by‑case basis.
The committee did not vote on any requests during the briefing; McGurkin said more specific deficiency‑warrant and supplemental requests will be reviewed during individual agency hearings, including the Department of Agriculture and Military Division, which have historically used deficiency warrants for pest control and fire suppression.
Members were also reminded that the committee must decide whether to include emergency clauses in any appropriations bills it approves during the session.
