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DFA: agencies seek $2.68 billion in special appropriations; GROW requests far exceed expected distribution
Summary
DFA analysts told the committee agencies asked for about $2.677 billion in special appropriations across funds, with roughly $825M in GROW requests—well above anticipated distributions—prompting lawmakers to ask for stricter vetting of recurring costs routed through specials.
Department of Finance and Administration analysts briefed lawmakers on special appropriation requests and the Government Results and Opportunity (GROW) fund, saying total agency submissions so far top $2.677 billion across funding sources and about $1.85 billion of that is general‑fund requests.
"So far, we have received agency requests for special appropriations ... for $2,677,000,000 from all fund all funding sources," said Joey Simon (DFA) as he walked members through the spreadsheet and handouts.
Simon explained the appropriation structure in House Bill 2: section 5 for special appropriations, section 6 for supplemental and deficiency appropriations, and section 9 for the GROW fund. He cautioned that FY26 nonrecurring capacity is smaller than recent years and said the statutory distribution rule for GROW (25% of the fund balance or $100 million, whichever is greater) limits available matching dollars; DFA estimated the GROW distribution would be roughly $166 million against current requests totaling $825 million.
Members raised several recurring concerns: recurring operating costs and staffing requests packaged as one‑time specials; the need to distinguish funding tied to prior legislation from new asks; and the importance of leveraging matching funds, such as DFA's New Mexico match fund (DFA asked for $75 million to help agencies match federal awards). Simon committed to follow up with analysts to flag items that appear to be ongoing operating obligations and to provide more detail on items such as election tabulator requests and the history of prior special appropriations.
The committee did not make funding decisions but directed staff to produce additional analysis and to consider reserving some special appropriations for FY27 to match estimated revenue timing.
