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House leaders warn fuel-price uncertainty, depleted balancers leave legislature with roughly $12.95 million of discretionary cash
Summary
House leadership told members the Legislature lacks a supplemental budget and that, absent budget balancers, the 'current status' shows about $12,952,339 available—subject to change as amendments are adopted and to executive actions that could shift funds.
House budget leaders told members Monday the Legislature faces constrained discretionary funds this week after the other chamber declined to advance a supplemental budget.
Chairman Bear, speaking on the House floor, told members the absence of a supplemental bill means budget “balancers” that would move money from savings into the general fund do not exist for the current status. "When you kill the supplemental budget by not giving either body an opportunity to vote on it, you essentially take all of our spending and you put it back into the funds," Bear said.
Bear walked members through the accounting they will see on the printed “goldenrod” that accompanies budget bills: the House column, the Senate column and a third column labeled the “current status” (the position with no supplemental). He told members to look on page 3, line 16 (line numbers cited by Bear) and said the third-column figure on line 17 is $12,952,339. "Now this is a very slippery number because as we pass amendments today ... that number will change," he said.
Why it matters: with only limited discretionary cash in the current status, the House faces narrower choices when considering amendments and second-/third-reading actions this week. Bear outlined three scenarios: (1) a worst case in which combined House and Senate actions push the general fund negative and force either the governor to move funds or call a special session to approve a budget balancer; (2) a best case in which prior amendments are removed or energy/commodity price estimates improve and the figure grows; and (3) a middle case in which the executive uses his authority to move funds between departments to cover shortfalls.
Bear also flagged a specific contingency: Senate File 152 (passed earlier in the day) contained a $152 million reversion from energy matching funds; $100 million of that was dedicated to loans and is from the LISRA/savings account, but $52 million could affect the general fund if the governor line-item vetoes that reversion. "Should the executive decide that he's going to line item that reversion ... that $52,000,000 would go against the general fund. OK. So now we're in serious trouble," Bear said.
Members on the floor used that context as they considered third-reading bills and amendments. The House leadership said it moved third readings ahead of second readings to try to get a number of bills to the governor quickly and to preserve legislative time before the session deadline.
Ending note: Bear urged members to consider the constrained picture when voting on amendments and said the House had until the next day for third readings. Lawmakers will see the printed goldenrod as it is distributed and were told to verify the column and line references Bear cited for the specific budget lines.
