Capital Project Overview Committee elects officers, adopts reporting guidelines and presses agencies for project updates

The Capital Budget and Capital Project Overview Committee met in an organizational session where members elected leadership, adopted procedures for how agencies submit capital project materials and discussed the Department of Administrative Services' quarterly capital projects report for the quarter ending Dec. 31, 2024.

The committee elected Representative Mills as chair by voice vote and named Representative Mike Edgar clerk. Senators and representatives also moved to nominate Senator Mark McConkie as vice chair; that nomination was seconded but the committee did not act because McConkie was not present, and members agreed to carry the nomination over to the next meeting.

Mr. Shea of the Department of Administrative Services presented the committee's quarterly compilation of capital projects and pointed members to a long-format report and a new shorter set of pages showing projects newly included under the committee's expanded charge. "The Department of Administrative Services compiles all the capital projects around the state, within the limited guidance of the procedures you just adopted," Mr. Shea said, and he noted the governor's trailer bill proposes changing the report from quarterly to annual.

Committee members pressed for clearer, project-level updates on items shown as "on hold" in the report. Senator Waters asked for status updates on several projects, including the rebid for the Big E building for agriculture, the woodworking construction at the women's prison, and projects at Pease. Waters said some projects had expected completion dates that had passed and requested agency follow-up. Mr. Shea said staff would gather information from agencies and email the full committee with the updates.

Members raised concerns about the proposed change in reporting frequency in the governor's House Bill 2 trailer language. Several members said quarterly reporting better serves legislative oversight. Representative Wyler and others suggested options short of preserving full quarterly reporting, such as raising the reporting threshold for non-capital-budget projects (one suggestion was increasing the reporting floor from $1 million to $2 million) to reduce administrative burden while keeping more significant projects visible.

The committee also discussed the committee's procedural authority. Members asked staff to request that any department that did not provide required input be asked to attend the committee to explain project status in person. Senator Gray asked that answers to outstanding project-status questions be attached to the meeting minutes to retain the information in the public record.

Members discussed specific budget and contracting questions raised during the meeting, including: a $4,000,000 discretionary line item carried forward for a Department of Transportation discretionary grant match; a statutory $25,000,000 design-build limit for DOT and whether inflation might warrant revisiting that cap; and a Department of Corrections appropriation described during the meeting as $50,000,000 to advance design and feasibility work for a potential future prison site (staff described approximately $10,000,000 being used for property feasibility work and $40,000,000 for schematic design). Committee staff said they would confirm and return more detailed expenditure and contracting information when agencies respond.

The committee set tentative meeting dates in April and June to allow members to review budget crossovers and to provide further oversight before the end of the session. With no further business, the committee adjourned.

Votes at a glance: Representative Mills nominated and elected chair (voice vote; motion carried). Senator Mark McConkie was nominated for vice chair; action deferred because the nominee was not present. Mike Edgar was nominated and elected clerk (motion carried). The committee adopted the guidelines and procedures for agency submissions and reporting (motion carried). The minutes of the November meeting were accepted (motion carried; recorded abstentions listed below).