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Committees close multiple smaller AG-related budget accounts; set extradition and opioid-coordinator funding levels
Summary
The joint committees closed several smaller Attorney General budget accounts, approved revised extradition funding levels, and approved transferring a federally funded opioid-coordinator position into the AG office.
During the same joint meeting, fiscal staff and committee members closed additional budget accounts and approved staff recommendations for several smaller but substantive items, including the extradition coordinator, the grants unit opioid coordinator, the Governor’s Office Agency for Nuclear Projects (other closing language) and a number of staff-closed accounts across the Attorney General’s portfolio.
Extradition coordinator: Fiscal staff recommended adjusting extradition funding based on five-year averages and updated agency projections. The committee approved the lower updated projection option (labeled option B in the packet): general fund appropriations of $378,484 in both FY 2026 and FY 2027 for a total level of $1,500,000 in each fiscal year of the 2025–27 biennium (the committee adopted the office’s updated projection rather than the governor’s larger recommendation). The motion carried on a voice vote.
Opioid coordinator: The committees approved transferring federal grant funds from the Division of Public and Behavioral Health to create a permanent, state-funded unclassified regulatory manager position in the Office of the Attorney General to serve as the opioid coordinator. Stephanie Day told the committees the position was previously grant-funded and would continue to be supported by the same federal block-grant and opioid-response grant revenues; the joint subcommittee on human services had recommended the corresponding change in the behavioral health account on April 6, 2025. The motion to approve the funding transfer and establish the position carried.
Other staff-closed accounts and technical adjustments: Fiscal staff presented closing recommendations for a number of AG-related budget accounts that required no major committee action beyond approval as recommended by the governor and technical adjustments. Those included the AG Tort Claim Fund (rate and reserve adjustments), Workers’ Compensation Fraud, Crime Prevention (missing children), Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, Consumer Advocate/Consumer Protection transfers, Council for Prosecuting Attorneys, Victims of Domestic Violence, Forfeiture (one-time funds exhausted), National Settlement Administration (one-time funds exhausted), State Settlements, and the Consumer Protection Legal Account. In several transfer decisions the committees approved technical adjustments to correct inadvertent exclusions (for example, cell-phone transfer costs and a duplicated grants-and-projects analyst in a transfer unit). Fiscal staff was authorized to make the technical adjustments necessary to reconcile transfers between accounts if the committees approved the Investigations Unit centralization.
Procedure and next steps: Committee members asked clarifying questions about the sources of federal funds for the opioid coordinator (Stephanie Day identified the funding as the Substance Abuse Prevention and Treatment Block Grant and opioid-response grant funds). The committees then approved the staff-recommended closings and technical adjustments and gave fiscal staff authority to make the necessary reconciliations between affected budget accounts.
