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JFAC staff outline new 90-minute morning hearing format, SharePoint materials and budget presentation templates
Summary
Janet Jessup and staff walked JFAC members through the committee’s revised presentation format, new consolidated fund analysis, five-year trend pages, account-category rules and how to find agency materials on SharePoint and the legislative budget website.
Janet Jessup, budget and policy analyst, briefed the Joint Finance and Appropriation Committee on Jan. 7 about the committee’s budget-hearing process, new packet organization and the reduced 90-minute morning presentation schedule.
Jessup said the committee condensed the three-hour presentations used in prior years into 90-minute, focused sessions that emphasize the maintenance and enhancement requests the committee will consider. She described the consistent slide elements members will see for every agency: a short agency description and statutory citations, an organizational chart with full-time positions and vacancy information, a consolidated fund analysis (showing dedicated-fund balances and trends), a five-year appropriation/expenditure trend, a pie-chart breakout by expense category (personnel costs, operating expenditures, capital outlay, trustee and benefit payments), and a five-year base snapshot separating ongoing and one-time appropriations.
Jessup demonstrated where committee members can find materials in the legislative SharePoint: each agency’s package will include the Legislative Budget Book pages, LSO budget slides, agency slides and hearing follow-up items. "Everything is listed first by page number," she said, and she encouraged members to sort the SharePoint by the modified date to find newly uploaded materials.
Analysts added the five-year trend and vacancy details so members can better judge whether salary savings or vacancy patterns reflect one-time factors (for example, a position left unfilled and later filled) or structural changes. Jessup cautioned that one-time salary savings should not be treated as an ongoing funding source for permanent pay increases.
Committee co-chairs urged members to attend the morning sessions on time and to use the desk materials and SharePoint resources. They emphasized that while members may focus on particular work-group agencies, every legislator on the committee will eventually vote on many budget bills and should use the unified presentations to ask questions across agencies.
Jessup closed with a reminder that the fiscal source book (a staff publication listing all dedicated funds, code citations and usage limits) is available and that analysts will print a quick-reference chart of account categories and transfer rules for members’ desks the following morning.
