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Legislative auditors' findings spur creation of out‑of‑state fire reimbursement account and staffing increases for incident billing
Summary
LCB fiscal staff and the subcommittees recommended steps to improve transparency and collection of reimbursements for out‑of‑state wildfire responses, including creation of a non‑reverting out‑of‑state budget account, startup general fund support, and three new incident billing positions funded from reimbursement transfers.
Following a legislative audit that identified billing backlogs and uncollected reimbursements, the joint subcommittees approved recommendations to improve fire incident billing, to separately track out‑of‑state reimbursements, and to add staff to the incident billing unit.
LCB fiscal staff summarized the audit: the agency had invoiced roughly $40,000,000 in fire reimbursement bills, of which about $20.2 million were for out‑of‑state incidents; roughly $4.5 million had been received in reimbursements. At the time of the report the agency had 276 invoices awaiting reimbursement (about $18.8 million) and 541 incidents awaiting invoicing (about $21.1 million).
To address audit recommendations, fiscal staff, in concurrence with the Governor's Finance Office and the agency, proposed establishing a new, non‑reverting out‑of‑state fire incident budget account to separately track out‑of‑state reimbursement revenues and costs. The subcommittees approved a package that: (a) establishes the new out‑of‑state account in statute via a bill draft request; (b) allows that account to balance forward and earn treasurer's interest; (c) provides a one‑time non‑reverting general fund appropriation (recommended amount discussed as $10,000,000 in staff materials) as startup funding; and (d) requires semiannual reporting to the Interim Finance Committee on amounts owed to and from the state for incidents, organized by in‑state and out‑of‑state incidents.
Fiscal staff also recommended staffing increases in the incident billing unit — one administrative services officer, one management analyst and one accounting assistant — and $100,000 per year for contract changes to the fire billing system. The subcommittees approved transfers of incident reimbursement revenues to fund these three positions ($471,499 in FY26 and $463,005 in FY27 were shown in staff estimates) and approved a letter of intent to direct allocation methodology for incident billing costs between in‑state and out‑of‑state accounts.
Committee members debated practical challenges: delineating fires that cross state lines, data and IT constraints, and whether the proposed structure could increase workload. Agency and Governor's Finance Office staff told the committee that the accounting system now has function codes to distinguish in‑state and out‑of‑state incidents, that a new billing system has improved processing and that the additional staff would help manage workload. The committee approved the staff recommendations with a voice vote; several members urged continued oversight and follow‑up reporting to IFC.
Ending: The committee adopted LCB fiscal's package to create a separate out‑of‑state reimbursement account, approved initial staffing increases for the incident billing unit funded by reimbursement transfers, and requested semiannual IFC reports on reimbursement status and compliance with audit recommendations.
