Appropriations hears bill to eliminate Strategic Investment Projects Account; committee debates school funding guarantees

Senator Hicks presented Senate File 169 to the House Appropriations Committee, proposing elimination of the Strategic Investment Projects Account (referred to in testimony alternately as SIPA and CIPA) and intercepting investment earnings that currently flow through that account into other automatic diversions.

Senator Hicks said the bill "simplify[s] the budget" by stopping automatic transfers that route money from the general fund into SIPA and then into other accounts. "We don't need to take general fund money, run it, from the general fund, into the CIPA account, from the CIPA account into the school foundation program account... If we wanted to just do that, we would just do a direct general fund appropriation to the school foundation," he said, adding the change would increase transparency about where general fund money…