Senate Finance removes second-injury fund language from budget, sponsor says she will pursue standalone bill

The Senate Finance Committee voted to approve two amendments that delete sections relating to the state’s second-injury fund from the pending budget package and removed the original amendment (item 1) so the sponsor can pursue a standalone bill.

Senator Lang moved to approve items 2 and 3 together — amendments described in the committee as deletions of the two sections that dealt with the second-injury fund — and asked that item 1 be removed from the budget list. The sponsor told the committee she had revised her approach after discussions with Commissioner Merrifield and said, "we'll remove number 1 and we'll pass number 2 and 3, which deletes the 2 sections that, dealt with the second injury fund," and that she would bring a bill forward to allow a full hearing process with stakeholders.

The committee voted in favor of approving items 2 and 3 and then, with no objection, removed item 1 from the list. The amendments approved by the committee were identified in committee as "amendment 2025-201704" and "2193.2.2302" (committee labels used during the session). The chair announced the ayes had it after calling the voice vote.

Committee members and staff discussed logistics for reintroducing the material as a bill and noted that removing the language from the budget preserves a fuller legislative hearing process for the policy change. No final statutory change was enacted in the budget at the committee meeting; the sponsor committed to filing a standalone bill for committee consideration instead of adopting the language inside the budget measure.