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Legislative analysts walk subcommittee through new budget, fund and fees tools ahead of February vote
Summary
Legislative Fiscal Analyst staff demonstrated online resources—COBE, fund-balance dashboards and a new fees dashboard—and previewed the subcommittee's voting packet and timeline ahead of the Feb. 11 voting date, urging agencies to submit materials 24 hours in advance.
Yvonne Jambaugh of the Legislative Fiscal Analyst's office told the Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environmental Quality Appropriations Subcommittee on Jan. 22 that members can find meeting materials, past proceedings and program-level budget details on COBE and budget.utah.gov.
Jambaugh said COBE provides program-level funding sources, intent language, past funded items and performance measures and pointed members to the fund balances interactive dashboard to check restricted-account reserves before deciding appropriations. "It shows you how much is in the bank, so to speak, for each of those 90 or so restricted accounts," she said.
The analyst also demonstrated a newly developed fees dashboard designed to give context for fee bills: historical amounts, quantity changes and whether revenues cover administration costs. Jambaugh said the dashboard currently lists about 5,000 fees and shows an estimated $1.8 billion in projected revenue but cautioned the number understates the total because some fees are recorded as "actual" or "cost" instead of numeric quantities.
Lacey Moore, also of the fiscal analyst office, walked members through the subcommittee's voting materials, explaining the packet will be versioned online so changes between drafts are visible. "This packet contains all of the information that we'll be voting on on February 11," she said, and recommended members review the 14‑page packet by a proposed February 3 lock date.
Moore noted the packet covers statutory requirements for fee changes, tables for federal-fund requests (authorization to apply, not guaranteed funding), committee motions and intent-language requests. She said the packet currently includes two committee motions about appropriation-unit title changes and that meeting No. 8 is set aside for final voting.
The items are meant to help the committee decide whether restricted accounts can fund agency requests, whether swaps between restricted accounts and the general fund make sense, and how fee changes affect projected revenue. Moore closed by asking agencies to submit presentations at least 24 hours before meetings so the public and members can follow along.
The subcommittee approved the minutes from Oct. 14, 2025 by voice vote and then moved on to agency briefings scheduled for the remainder of the session.
