Audit finds fiscal-note inaccuracies tied to bill changes; budget office outlines limits of 7-day rule

Legislative auditors and the state's budget office told the Committee on Legislative Modernization that discrepancies between fiscal notes and later fiscal outcomes most often result from changes to bills after the fiscal notes are prepared, and staff described the statutory and practical limits on updating those notes.

Andy Branzo of Legislative Post Audit summarized the office's 2023 review, saying the audit looked at 10 enacted bills from 2018–2019 and 10 bills that failed in 2021–2022. "Changes made to bills after the fiscal notes were submitted resulted in most of the inaccuracies that we saw," Branzo said, noting that the audit judged a fiscal note "accurate" when it was within roughly 20% of later actuals.

Adam Prophet, secretary of administration and director of the Division of the Budget, told the committee that KSA 75 37 15a sets a seven-calendar-day deadline for producing fiscal notes after a bill is read in. He described the division's workflow—10 analysts assigned across functions, outreach to impacted agencies, a template for fiscal contacts, and an internal two-reader review—and said agencies provide the…