Subcommittee reviews governor's office budget; members pressed for grant performance data and reappropriation restorations

The Legislative Subcommittee, Ways and Means heard an overview of the governor's office FY2026 and FY2027 budgets and pressed for more detail on grant performance and reappropriations.

Arianna Waddell, the budget presenter, told the committee the governor's office FY2026 revised estimate totals about $62,000,000 in all funds and roughly $37,300,000 in state general funds, noting those sums represent less than 1% of statewide totals. She said the agency's budget is heavily concentrated in state aid and assistance and pointed lawmakers to comparison sheets and the performance-based budget provided to the committee.

Waddell flagged several changes between the SBC recommendation and the governor's proposal, including the governor's recommendation to add a $102,000 one-time appropriation to finance an executive director for the office of early childhood, an item tied in staff testimony to last year's passage of HB 2,245. She also described reappropriation adjustments: approximately $2.5 million in unspent SGF rolled forward from FY2025 to FY2026, about $1.7 million of which supports domestic violence prevention grants, child advocacy center grants and CASA programs.

Will Lawrence, Governor Kelly's chief of staff, asked the committee to restore the reappropriations and explained why the grants office SGF has grown: "you can see where it's gone through quite a bit over the 8 years, especially with the ARPA funds that came in through the office of recovery," and, where federal trust funds declined, the executive branch had used SGF to cover shortfalls. Lawrence also said the bulk of the roughly $2.5 million reappropriation has been disbursed for its intended grant purposes and described about $794,000 in executive-branch reappropriations that the governor's office has used for transition and program timing issues.

Committee members asked for additional detail on specific line items and accounting differences between the KLRD write-up and executive-branch systems. The grants office director said statistical and demographic performance data and county-by-county breakdowns are available online and can be provided to the committee.

Lawrence additionally described the governor's military council and related salary arrangements and said the executive branch could cover a new early-childhood executive director from reappropriated funds rather than new ongoing SGF. He noted ARPA-funded programs and the office of recovery must meet federal spending deadlines, saying, "All of the ARPA funds have to be spent by the end of this calendar year." The subcommittee did not reduce the governor's proposed line items at the meeting; instead, members moved recommendations that included restoring some grant-related reappropriations.

The committee paused to take up testimony from nonprofit providers and later returned to recommendations before adjourning.