Committee gives favorable reports to package of assessment and annual appropriation bills

The committee moved and voice-voted to report favorably a set of recurring assessment and appropriation bills, including measures to remove sunset provisions on provider assessments and several annual appropriations.

Several bills were handled with minimal debate and unanimous voice votes: SB143 would remove the sunset for the nursing facilities privilege assessment; SB145 continues the private hospital assessment that the sponsor described as leveraging federal matching dollars; SB144 removes the sunset on the emergency medical transport (ambulance) provider assessment; SB153 authorizes an annual appropriation from tobacco-settlement funds for the children’s trust fund; SB154 provides a cost-of-living increase for state employees effective Oct. 1, 2026; a small general-fund appropriation of $169,633 to the Coalition Against Domestic Violence was also approved; HB224 and SB152 (two versions of the children's health insurance distribution language) were reported favorably; and other routine matters received favorable reports.

On SB143, the presenter said, "Senate bill 143 basically removes the sunset from the assessment tax to, nursing homes." On SB145 one committee member said of the hospital assessment, "the beauty about this is this money we're able to use and double basically, double the money in from the fed dollars that come back to us." The ambulance-assessment presenter noted that early-year appropriations had supplied nearly $20,000,000 back to ambulance services and urged removal of the sunset to continue that funding.

All listed bills were given favorable committee reports and will proceed to the next legislative stage.