Staff directors back moving Office of Legislative Operations into Legislative Council; fiscal tasks shift to Joint Fiscal Office

The House Appropriations Committee heard a presentation that staff directors want to fold the Office of Legislative Operations into the Office of Legislative Council and assign fiscal administrative responsibilities to the Joint Fiscal Office, with statutory language to be placed in the Budget Adjustment Act.

Brynn Hare, director and chief counsel of Legislative Council, told the committee that about 10 pages of statutory edits would be absorbed into the Budget Adjustment Act to reflect a reorganization the Joint Legislative Management Committee approved in December. "The Joint Legislative Management Committee took a vote, and that vote included the recommendation that language to effectuate their decision go into the Budget Adjustment Act," Hare said during the briefing.

Why it matters: the reallocation moves committee and administrative services back under Legislative Council while concentrating fiscal administrative support in JFO, shifting where staff support for many joint committees is housed and changing which office handles member reimbursements and some judicial retention paperwork.

Hare said the change is largely procedural: it formalizes an operational arrangement that staff directors have already implemented over the past nine months. "This has been the way things have been working," she said, and added the JLMC directed staff directors to draft the statutory language needed to codify the arrangement.

Financial and staffing effects: Hare said the fiscal questions are properly answered by JFO but told members that for fiscal year 2027 "we budgeted a fraction of the salary for the director position" with the understanding the director position would not be filled, and that eliminating that position should produce a net positive fiscal impact. She also said Legislative Council recently hired two additional attorneys and currently has all authorized attorney positions filled. "We're heading into the session. I'm in a really good position," Hare said.

Committee and statute details: Hare reviewed specific sections that would be edited. The proposal removes references to the Office of Legislative Operations as the statutory staffer for a range of joint committees — including the Joint Carbon Emissions Reduction Committee, the Joint Information Technology Oversight Committee, the Legislative Committee on Administrative Rules (LCAR), the Joint Public Pension Oversight Committee, the Commission on International Trade and the Joint Transportation Oversight Committee — and directs Legislative Council or JFO to provide those services going forward. She said the final section would repeal V.S.A. chapter 16, the chapter that created the Office of Legislative Operations.

Concerns and oversight: Members asked whether the reorganization would revive historical "turf wars," whether codifying the change in statute would reduce operational flexibility, and whether shifting responsibilities would increase costs. Hare described the staff directors' discussions as "quite collegial" and said there were no dissenting staff directors in the recommendation; on flexibility she said JLMC retains authority to revisit statute if the new arrangement proves problematic.

Next steps: The chair said staff will include the drafting language in the Budget Adjustment Act unless members raise a substantive objection. The JLMC-approved directive to draft and place the statutory language in the Budget Adjustment Act is the concrete action emerging from the briefing; the bill-in-progress will be the vehicle for the statutory changes and any fiscal figures will be examined by JFO during the budget process.

The committee concluded the briefing and signaled no immediate opposition to placing the language in the Budget Adjustment Act.