JFAC corrects FY2025 reappropriations for broadband, DEQ and Department of Health and Welfare accounting errors

Boise — The Joint Finance and Appropriations Committee on Jan. 17 approved a set of technical corrections to the current fiscal year’s appropriations that move previously reappropriated dollars into the correct accounts and correct two Health and Welfare expenditure classifications.

Committee budget analyst Janet Jessup told members the first correction shifts reappropriated broadband monies placed into the Department of Commerce’s commerce program into the broadband office created last year so the dollars can be tracked properly. Jessup said the two motions to (1) remove the amount from the commerce program and (2) add it to the broadband office net to zero and are intended to improve transparency.

The committee approved both motions on voice and roll-call votes. The first motion to remove $291,737,000 in reappropriated funds from the Department of Commerce commerce program carried on a 20–0 roll call. A second, companion motion to add the same amount to the broadband office also passed 20–0.

Separately, Jessup described a correction for the Department of Environmental Quality. She said monies that were taken from DEQ’s general fund appropriation should instead have been recorded as a transfer from the general fund. The committee approved a motion to correct the FY2025 record — a one-time $2,000,000 transfer — on a unanimous 20–0 roll call vote.

Jessup then detailed two changes requested by the Department of Health and Welfare that move amounts mistakenly classified in trustee and benefit payments into operating expenditures because the funds will be paid out by contract. Representative Price moved and the committee approved both adjustments: a $160,000 reclassification for the Substance Abuse Treatment and Prevention program and a $240,000 reclassification for the Physical Health Services program; both motions passed on unanimous roll-call votes (each 20–0).

Committee clerks called the roll for each motion; no members requested to change votes after tallying. The committee chair said the technical corrections were “nothing shy of a miracle” given the number of changes the legislature made last year.

The committee characterized these items as bookkeeping and accounting fixes that do not change total funding levels but make the state’s records align with where programs now reside or how funds must be expended by statute or contract.