JFAC corrects Health & Welfare expenditure categories, reallocates $400,000 within current fiscal year

The Joint Finance and Appropriations Committee on Jan. 17 approved technical corrections moving existing money between expenditure categories inside the Department of Health and Welfare.

Janet Jessup, budget and policy analyst, told members two requests were corrections: monies originally placed in trustee and benefit payments should be recorded as operating expenditures when the dollars are paid under contract to third parties. Law and appropriation rules limit the department’s ability to move funds out of trustee and benefit payments without legislative action.

Representative Doug Price moved the first correction for the Substance Abuse Treatment and Prevention program: a $160,000 reduction from trustee and benefit payments in the Idaho Millennium Income Fund and a corresponding $160,000 increase to operating expenditures from the same fund. The motion was seconded by Senator Bierke and passed on roll call: 20 ayes, 0 nays.

Representative Price then moved a second, separate correction for the Physical Health Services program: a $240,000 reduction from the Central Tumor Registry fund to operating expenditures (the transcript records the move as a reduction for operating expenditures in that fund). Senator Bierke seconded; the motion passed unanimously on roll call, 20–0.

Committee members and analysts described these motions as accounting corrections to match how the department actually pays contractors and to preserve the department’s ability to spend the funds for the programs intended.

Ending: Both corrections carried “do pass” recommendations. Staff will reflect the changes in the fiscal-year appropriation tables so the expenditure categories match contract payment practice and statutory constraints.

Note: Article reflects motions and tallies recorded in the committee transcript and does not infer programmatic changes beyond the reclassification of expenditure categories.