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Pro Tem and fiscal staff outline plan to restructure the General Appropriations Act; committee to consider LOI
Summary
Senator Chris Carr and Bureau of Finance and Management director Steven Koehler discussed a plan to reform how the General Appropriations Act (G Bill) is structured and presented; the committee directed staff to draft a letter of intent to review the G Bill format and implement changes over the interim.
Senator Chris Carr (president pro tempore) and Steven Koehler of the Bureau of Finance and Management presented a proposal to the Joint Committee on Appropriations to review and redesign the format of the General Appropriations Act (the G Bill) to improve transparency and clarity about legislative intent and program-level funding.
Carr said the current G Bill resembles "basically an Excel spreadsheet with a bunch of numbers" and proposed breaking the bill out by program to show where dollars are appropriated and how FTEs are allocated. He asked the committee to adopt a letter of intent to work through the interim with executive-branch fiscal staff and legislative fiscal staff to develop a new layout and incorporate motion-sheet intent into the G Bill’s presentation.
Steven Koehler, speaking for the Bureau of Finance and Management, supported the effort but cautioned against creating excessive bureaucracy. "We don't want a thousand page general appropriations bill that you can't read... The goal would be to have a concise yet explainable general bill and information for agencies to report back to this committee so that there is an accountability as well as an informed conversation about what we're spending funding on and what we're doing," Koehler said.
Nut graf: The committee agreed to draft a LOI to review the G Bill format and to work with executive and legislative fiscal staff over the interim to produce a prototype layout that balances transparency with readability and avoids unnecessary reporting burdens.
Committee members discussed trade-offs between including program-level detail and avoiding an unwieldy document; the committee agreed to consider a draft LOI at the next meeting in May. Representative Kolbeck and others emphasized the need to provide useful intent without creating an excessively large document.
Ending: Staff will draft a letter of intent and a proposed agenda for the interim review; the committee deferred further action to the May meeting to allow continued coordination with the executive branch and fiscal staff.
