JFAC staff roll out SharePoint document system and map hearing schedule to committee work groups

BOISE — The Joint Finance-Appropriation Committee received a demonstration Jan. 8 of a new SharePoint structure that Legislative Services Office staff say will host the legislative budget book, agency presentations and other materials for use by committee members and the public.

Keith Bybee, division manager for budget and policy analysis with LSO, told members the SharePoint site mirrors the OneDrive system used in the House and is intended to be a searchable, downloadable repository for staff and members. “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.

Bybee walked members through the recommended naming convention for files, explained that downloaded PDFs should be saved locally to enable annotation, and demonstrated how the legislative “session record” provides archived agendas, audio and presentations for public access. Members were encouraged to save agency presentation files to a personal JFAC folder and to contact staff for individual help; staff said iPads and Surface devices are available to members who want to annotate documents electronically.

LSO also outlined the committee’s hearing and work-group schedule. Members were given an overview of topics by week: the governor’s presentation and agency front-end reports in the first week; Department of Health and Welfare and secondary education agencies in week 2 followed by program maintenance budget setting; institutions of higher education and statewide elected officials in week 4; natural resources and career-technical education in subsequent weeks; and a projected completion of JFAC business around the tenth week of session in mid-March. Bybee said each weekday’s JFAC session will generally run about 8 to 9:30 a.m., with work-group meetings continuing after the committee adjourns to allow analysts and members to “divide and conquer” detailed review work.

The staff demonstration included instructions for downloading multiple agency PDFs (select the row circle and use the download function to avoid read-only viewing) and guidance on a new naming convention designed to reduce duplicate files. Bybee said the system will store materials going back to previous sessions as well as interim meeting documents. “All of the documents that the committee members have, you have access to as members of the public as well,” he said, noting the administration’s aim for transparency.

Members asked for follow-up individual help sessions to set up SharePoint on their machines; Bybee and committee staff offered to provide one-on-one assistance. Committee leaders also reminded members to identify which work groups they will serve on and to connect with the analysts assigned to those subject areas ahead of the first work-group meetings.