JFAC staff demonstrate SharePoint, introduce LSO impact team and outline hearing schedule

Boise — On Jan. 8 members of the Joint Finance and Appropriation Committee spent part of their orientation reviewing how to access committee documents electronically, the committee hearing schedule and the staff resources that will support budget review this session.

Keith Bybee, division manager for the Legislative Services Office’s Budget and Policy Analysis team, guided members through the committee’s SharePoint site and demonstrated how to download and save agency presentations and the legislative budget book. Bybee told members to download files to avoid read‑only mode: “If you just click on the file itself, you won’t be able to make your notes on that file,” he said, and explained that downloading preserves the ability to annotate with a stylus or PDF tools.

Bybee outlined a new naming convention intended to reduce duplicate downloads and make agency and analyst presentations easier to locate; he described a 5‑digit file code and a convention that will group agency front‑end materials, agency presentations and analyst presentations in one place.

Access and public record

Bybee also showed members how the public can access the same materials through the Legislature’s web portal (legislature.idaho.gov → Legislative Services → Budget and Policy → Session Record by Agency). The session record contains meeting videos, audio, slide decks and the same documents used by the committee so that members of the public can review prior hearings and presentations.

Hearing schedule and work groups

Bybee walked members through a multi‑week hearing schedule and explained how hearings and work groups will be used: JFAC will meet roughly 8–9:30 a.m. each day for plenary hearings; work groups will meet afterward to dig into program details. He summarized the planned sequence by week: the initial orientation and governor’s presentation (week 1), agency maintenance and replacement items and Department of Health and Welfare presentations (week 2), higher education and statewide elected official budgets (week 4), transportation and major capital and personnel topics in later weeks, and a target to finish committee business by mid‑March.

Staff introductions and new research capacity

Legislative staff also introduced the budget and policy analysts and a new LSO impact review team intended to support performance‑oriented and evidence‑based review. Paul Headley, a legislative deputy, introduced the impact review analysts and two research fellows placed on loan from the McClure Center at Boise State University. Headley described the team’s capacity to provide short research notes, one‑to‑two page memos or deeper analyses to answer committee questions about program evidence and outcomes. “As I’ve looked at performance measures… there’s one word or one theme that continues to rise to the top and that’s evidence,” Headley told the committee.

Bybee and staff reminded members that printed budget books remain available on request but that committee members can use provided devices (iPads and Surface Pros) to mark up PDFs; staff also said they will provide individual follow‑ups to help members download and organize materials.

What the committee will do next

Members were asked to meet with assigned analysts and begin work group activities; staff said they will publish instructions and provide one‑on‑one assistance to members who need help accessing SharePoint or the session record.

Ending

Committee leadership and staff framed the measures as tools to speed deliberations and increase transparency: documents used in committee are public and accessible online, staff said, and the new impact review team is positioned to help the committee examine evidence and outcomes as it considers appropriations.