Senate Finance committee removes marked budget items, debates insurer assessment for children’s behavioral health

The Senate Finance Committee met in a budget work session and voted to remove all items marked "delete" from its recap packet, denied a request to restore a legislative back-of-budget cut, rejected a request for an additional treasurer staff position and adopted an amendment to suspend revenue sharing, while asking staff for further fiscal analyses of several bills including Senate Bill 128.

The actions followed a brief executive-session call at the start of the meeting. After returning to open session, the chair introduced a packet labeled the "recap sheet" that lists agency requests and corresponding amendments for senators to review.

Committee staff told members the packet is intended as daily guidance through budget work sessions and that items marked "delete" in the status column could be restored later if members requested it. The committee voted to delete all items so listed after giving members the opportunity to remove specific items from that deletion motion. The motion passed with the chair saying "ayes have it." No individual roll-call tally was recorded in the transcript for that motion.

Members focused discussion on a mix of agency requests and proposed changes. Legislative staff (LBA) briefed the committee on Senate Bill 128, described in the packet as relative to children’s mental-health services. According to the LBA briefing, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) estimates the bill would create an assessment on insurers that could raise between $2 million and $3 million per year, plus an estimated $175,000 per year in administrative costs; the bill text in the packet did not specify precisely which services would be covered. Senators asked for that kind of fiscal analysis on other bills so members would understand budgetary effects before voting on them.

The committee also voted on a motion to deny a request to restore a back-of-budget cut to the legislative branch. The transcript records the result as 5 to 1 in favor of denial.

Later in the meeting, senators considered agency-specific requests. The treasurer’s request for an additional staff position was moved to be denied and the motion passed. The committee adopted an amendment that changes a proposed elimination of revenue sharing to a suspension; that amendment was approved on voice vote.

Committee members flagged multiple pages in the packet for further homework and agreed to reconvene the next day for continued work. The chair told members that additional recap sheets and agency packets would be provided for the following meeting.

Votes at a glance

- Motion to go into executive session — approved (committee proceeded into executive session; no roll-call tally recorded in the transcript).

- Motion to delete all items marked "delete" in the status column of the recap packet — approved (voice vote; transcript records "ayes have it").

- Motion to deny restoration of legislative back-of-budget cut — approved, tally recorded in transcript as 5 yes, 1 no (motion carried; request denied).

- Motion to deny the treasurer’s request for an additional staff position (page 6, item 1) — approved (voice vote; motion carried).

- Motion to adopt amendment to suspend revenue sharing (changes elimination language to "suspend") — approved (voice vote; motion carried).

What remains: senators asked staff to provide fiscal analyses for bills with appropriations or unclear funding language before further votes; several items were held for follow-up and the committee scheduled another work session for the next day at 1 p.m.

Sources: committee proceedings and staff briefings recorded in the session transcript.