Conference committee recommends Senate Bill 6,005 transportation budget after 5–1 vote

The conference committee on the two-year transportation budget voted 5–1 to recommend the conference report on Senate Bill 6,005 after a roll call in which the clerk reported five votes to recommend and one vote not to recommend.

Amy Skay, committee staff, told conferees the conference agreement compares senate, house and conference funding levels and includes supporting schedules. Skay said the senate floor budget totaled $17,000,000,000, the house floor $16,500,000,000 and the conference appropriation $16,600,000,000. She said the package provides $800,000,000 in reappropriated capital funds from the prior biennium, $300,000,000 in new preservation funding, $40,000,000 in maintenance funding and a small ferries preservation allocation, and that staff will publish a six-year plan in supporting documents.

Representative Fey, who moved adoption of the conference report, praised staff and framed the agreement as the result of compromise. "This is about compromise," Fey said, and urged colleagues to view the package as addressing preservation and ferry needs while recognizing limited resources.

Senator King and Senator Krishnadossan expressed support for added maintenance and preservation funding and for investments to address ferry challenges; Krishnadossan singled out work at the Eagle Harbor maintenance facility as critical to keeping vessels operational. Representative Donaghy emphasized traffic safety as a continuing priority tied to maintenance work.

Ranking Member Vargas commended staff efforts but raised concerns about the budget's funding method, specifically reliance on bonds and other long-term revenue approaches, and said she expects interim work on sustainable revenue options.

The chair closed by reiterating a focus on maintenance and preservation and connected preservation funding to jobs, stating that "$1,500,000,000 in new preservation is 30,000 jobs." The committee then proceeded to a roll call. The clerk reported five votes to recommend the conference report and one vote not to recommend; the chair declared the conference budget recommended and adjourned the committee.

Noted discrepancies and clarifications: staff's itemization to the committee described $300,000,000 in new preservation funding (Amy Skay's staff report), while the chair later referenced $1,500,000,000 in new preservation when summarizing job impacts. The transcript contains inconsistent name spellings for some members (for example, variants of Krishnadossan and a clerk readout that included mixed name fragments); the article uses the spellings and role labels that appear in the meeting record and flags numeric and name inconsistencies as not specified in source documents.

Next steps: the committee recorded its recommendation of the conference report; the transcript does not show further procedural steps in this meeting (for example, where the report is transmitted next), and the committee adjourned.