Joint Budget Committee cuts Health/Life/Dental and ULAED template amounts, citing over‑appropriations

The Joint Budget Committee voted to adopt staff recommendations reducing front-end template appropriations for statewide Health, Life and Dental (HLD) and for ULAED (payroll-driven employer payments) after JBC staff presented multi-year data showing recurring over‑appropriations in several departments.

Alfredo Kem, JBC staff, presented department-level tables showing consistent over‑appropriation totaling roughly $6.9 million for HLD and about $3.0 million for ULAED for fiscal year 24‑25 in the set of departments identified as consistently over‑appropriated. He said staff used a three‑year average reduced by 5% and capped extreme department reductions (for example higher education at a 50% cap) as a conservative approach to capture potential savings without destabilizing operations.

Senator Mobley moved to adopt the staff recommendation to reduce the FY26‑27 HLD and ULAED template amounts; the motion passed on a vote of 6 to 0. Committee members acknowledged the risk that some departments (Corrections, Human Services, Judicial) may need mid‑year supplemental true‑ups, a point Kem said staff would manage through normal mid‑year processes.

Kem framed the proposal as an accuracy and transparency measure: "What we're doing is we're saying this is our estimate of the state cost to make these payments based on payroll... But what we're finding when we're actually looking at this is that there appear to be over appropriations to many of these departments for health, life, dental, and ULAED," he told the committee.

The committee adopted the reduction motion and directed staff to finalize template adjustments and to track mid‑year true‑ups if departments require additional appropriations.