Legislative staff outline technical corrections to FY2025 budgets; formal votes scheduled

Janet Jessup, a budget and policy analyst with Legislative Services, told the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee on Friday that legislative staff found several technical corrections to the fiscal year 2025 budgets that the committee will consider at a later vote.

The corrections are largely bookkeeping adjustments that do not change overall totals but move monies so they are tracked and spent under the intended program. "The Department of Commerce was provided re appropriation authority and then subsequent to that the broadband program was created in order to increase transparency and oversight of spending regarding broadband monies received by the state," Jessup said, explaining that some FY2025 broadband reappropriations were recorded under Commerce rather than the newer broadband program and must be shifted so broadband costs can be tracked in the broadband program.

Jessup also described a drafting error affecting the Department of Environmental Quality and the CAFO (confined animal feeding operation) improvement fund. "In the drafting of the transfer, it's stated from the DEQ General Fund. Fund. So what ultimately ended up happening is that transfer from the general fund was never made to CAFO," she said, adding that the proposed correction would make the agency whole by replacing general fund monies moved to the CAFO fund in error.

Finally, staff described two line-item corrections in the Department of Health and Welfare that reclassify payments to third parties. Jessup said some amounts that were budgeted as trustee and benefit payments should instead be classified as operating expenditures because they are payments to contractors under a procurement. Those moves are net-zero transfers within each agency's budget but require legislative action because the department's bill restricts moving money out of trustee and benefit payments.

Chairman Groh thanked staff for the work and said the committee will vote on the technical corrections at a subsequent session. No formal motion or committee vote on the corrections was recorded during the session.

The committee discussion and the staff presentation are scheduled to reappear on the agenda for a vote the next day.