JFAC accepts governor office technical budget corrections, committee corrects CEC salary language

The Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee on Jan. 13 accepted a set of technical corrections to the governor's revised budget and approved a corrected recommendation letter from the Committee on Economic Conditions (CEC).

The Department of Financial Management submitted revisions that together total about $920,000. The largest change was an $870,000 adjustment to the calculation for the Idaho Digital Learning Academy after new code from the prior session changed how that program should be included in calculations for the CEC. A $45,000 correction moved a SwiCap billing for the Legislative Services Office into the proper general fund, a $5,000 change corrected pay-grade calculations at the Department of Health and Welfare for a small number of employees, and one technical correction to an Idaho State University endowment fund entry had no fiscal impact.

Separately, Legislative Services staff presented a corrected CEC recommendation letter to reflect actions the committee took the prior week. The corrected language removes previously included "flexibility language" and clarifies that a $1.55-per-hour-per-FTE salary increase (as recommended by the committee) does not include the now-confirmed 4.5% market-based increase for classified IT and engineering salary schedule employees; that market-based increase is in addition to the $1.55-per-hour figure. The committee accepted the corrected letter by unanimous consent.

Committee members asked a small number of clarifying questions during the presentation; no roll-call votes were taken on the budget corrections beyond the unanimous-consent acceptance of the corrected CEC letter.

The items presented are administrative corrections to the governor's submitted recommendation and to the committee's own letter; any substantive changes to appropriations would be handled in subsequent budget motions and votes during the session.