Capital Development Committee asks staff to draft omnibus bill to tidy capital statutes and deadlines

The Capital Development Committee voted 6-0 to have legislative staff draft a bill that bundles several technical and procedural changes to statutes governing capital projects and committee operations.

Matt Bishop of Legislative Council staff introduced a memorandum of proposed statutory tweaks that staff compiled over recent years and said the committee could decide to take up any or all items as committee legislation. Bishop described proposals that ranged from establishing a fixed encumbrance deadline to simplifying the CDC chair election schedule.

Key proposals summarized by staff during the meeting included:

- Fixing the encumbrance deadline: statute currently requires agencies and institutions to encumber funds within six months of the long bill signing; staff proposed defining a single calendar date (for example, Nov. 1) to reduce annual confusion over variable signing dates.

- Converting deadline waivers to extensions: instead of granting waivers that remove CDC oversight, staff proposed allowing CDC to grant time-limited extensions so the committee can review projects that continue to experience procurement or contracting issues.

- Moving the treasurer's report due date: staff proposed changing the annual due date for the treasurer's report on the higher-education revenue bond intercept program from Sept. 1 to March 1 to align with institutional audit schedules and provide fresher data.

- Aligning the two-year cash-need projection process with current practice: staff proposed statutory changes to match existing practice and to clarify interim timelines (examples include 30 days in session and 45 days out of session for approvals).

- Updating OSPV priority and other deadline clarifications: a technical change to move a Jan. 1 due date to Jan. 2 to avoid holiday conflicts, and clarifying spending authority for projects receiving supplemental appropriations (treating the appropriation as available for the remainder of that fiscal year plus two additional fiscal years).

- Simplifying chair election timing and member appointment timing: staff proposed making chair and vice-chair elections occur consistently at the first December meeting each year and discussed a statutory change to require ("shall") rather than allow ("may") committee appointees to be designated before hearings, or to permit provisional appointments in light of post-election certification timelines.

- Department of Transportation submission requirement: statute currently requires the Transportation Commission to submit at least one capital request to CDC every year; staff proposed changing "shall" to "may" to give the department flexibility when projects are not needed or have been funded from other sources.

- Art-in-public-places waivers: staff proposed clarifying CDC's discretion to waive art-in-public-places requirements in consultation with the program when projects do not fit existing exemption categories.

Legislative council and committee staff (Matt Bishop, Beau Pogue, Nina Forbes and others) reviewed the proposals and answered members' procedural questions. Committee members discussed whether to put all proposals into a single omnibus bill or split them into multiple measures; staff said either was feasible and that members could later prioritize drafts before introduction.

Senator Malika moved that the CDC have legislation drafted on the topics presented in the memorandum. The motion passed on a unanimous roll-call vote of 6 to 0.

The committee did not at this meeting adopt substantive policy changes beyond directing staff to draft statutory language; the vote authorized drafting only. Members asked staff to consider timing for drafting and inclusion of member priorities when preparing the bill language.

Proposed items will return to the committee for review of bill drafts and a subsequent decision on whether to introduce the measures as committee legislation.