Executive committee reviews FY2027 budget requests from legislative support agencies

The Executive Committee of the Legislative Council on Thursday heard FY2027 budget presentations from four legislative support agencies and discussed cost pressures from rising health, life and dental premiums.

State Auditor Keri Hunter told the committee the Office of the State Auditor's FY2027 request is just over $15 million, comprised of about $13,364,000 in general funds and $1,641,000 in reappropriated funds, an increase of roughly $175,125 (about 1.2%). Hunter said the office applied the committee-directed 1.5% base salary reduction and highlighted four items driving the net change: the salary-base adjustment, higher employee-benefits costs, an operating transfer related to centralizing telephone services with Legislative Council staff, and slightly higher audit-contract payments tied to a local CPI measure. "Our FY27 budget request overall has just a few changes," Hunter said, adding the audit-contract increase was applied to the reappropriated portion and is funded through audit billings to departments.

Director Natalie Castle presented Legislative Council staff's request, which the packet lists at roughly $18.8 million total funds and about $18.7 million general fund. Castle said 86% of that total is personal services, and the agency is asking for a 2.2% increase driven primarily by health/life/dental costs and a consolidation of phone services into LCS. She also said annualizing prior-year legislation (restoring interim committees and related travel) accounts for some of the upward pressure and that items funded in the long bill (for example, the blue book and a property-tax audit) are not included in this request.

Craig Harper, Joint Budget Committee staff, described an extremely flat budget for JBC staff (about 98% personal services). Harper said he proposed eliminating a 0.6 FTE administrative position to redirect resources to existing staff health insurance and professional development, and noted the phone-system centralization reduced his office's costs by roughly $11,800.

Ed DeCicco, director of the Office of Legislative Legal Services, reviewed his office's request and said the net increase is about 1.7%, again largely due to benefit-cost growth and the annualization of prior legislation such as Senate Bill 199. DeCicco said he is reallocating one existing FTE from legal services to HR to strengthen in-house HR services (pay and benefits administration, unemployment and workers' comp handling, and workplace investigations), not adding net headcount. He also proposed operational adjustments including a $75,000 increase in contract printing to prepare for potential election-year supplements and a modest transit-stipend increase to reflect local parking costs.

Committee members repeatedly raised the effect of rising benefit premiums. Harper said the Joint Budget Committee has begun conversations with the Department of Personnel and Administration about disparities among plan vendors and the fiscal impact. "The increases that are showing up in health, life, dental costs are eye catching," he said.

On technology and security, DeCicco and Legislative Council staff described continuing rollout of multi-factor authentication via Okta. LCS interim IT director Zach Wimberly said Okta supports alternatives to cell‑phone authentication but works most comfortably with mobile devices; DeCicco said the office proposed a $10-per-month stipend to acknowledge employees' use of personal devices for authentication.

The committee took no final spending decisions on the FY2027 requests at the meeting; members thanked agency directors and directed staff to proceed with drafting related legislation where requested. The committee will finalize and vote on a budget in a follow-up session next week.

Ending: The committee adjourned after directing staff to draft bills related to the legislative department cash fund and continued suspension of certain interim committees.