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JFAC staff outline shorter daily hearings, consolidated materials and SharePoint access for lawmakers
Summary
Janet Jessup of LSO walked JFAC members through the committee’s revised hearing format, consolidated budget slides, consolidated fund analysis and SharePoint repository for budgets and supporting documents.
Janet Jessup, a budget and policy analyst with the Legislative Services Office, gave committee members an overview of the budget‑hearing format they will use during the session and demonstrated how budget materials are organized online.
Jessup said the committee has shortened daily presentations so members receive targeted, 90‑minute briefings focused on maintenance and enhancement items rather than multi‑hour slide decks. Each agency presentation will include an organizational chart, a consolidated fund analysis showing dedicated fund balances, a five‑year appropriation and expenditure trend, and a breakout of expenditures by account category (personnel costs, operating expenditures, trustee and benefit payments, and capital outlay). The slides also summarize the agency’s recent enhancements and the distinction between ongoing base changes and one‑time additions.
Jessup told members that the legislative budget book includes a fiscal source book that explains each agency’s dedicated funds and the statutory limitations on those funds. She emphasized that dedicated funds are typically restricted to the agency that receives them and cannot be reallocated to other agencies without statutory authority.
On materials access, Jessup demonstrated the SharePoint repository where each agency’s materials are arranged by page number and by type: legislative budget book pages, LSO budget slides, agency slides, and hearing follow‑up documents. She advised members to sort by modified date to find newly added documents and to avoid repeatedly downloading large folders.
Committee leaders stressed practical points: members should attend the streamlined morning hearings because those presentations are the common record for members who will later vote on many bills; members should notify co‑chairs if they must leave a hearing early; and staff provided an account‑category cheat sheet (personnel costs, trustee and benefit payments, operating expenditures, capital outlay) for members’ desks.
Ending: Jessup offered to show committee members how to navigate SharePoint and to provide printed copies of summary pages; co‑chairs thanked her and staff for the restructured materials and for making information more accessible to members and the public.
